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The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


"It  drives  one  almost  to  despair  of  English  Literature 
when  one  sees  so  extraordinary  a  study  of  English  life  as 
Butler's  posthumous  Way  of  All  Flesh"  making  so 
little  impression  that  when,  some  years  later,  I  produce 
plays  in  which  Butler's  extraordinarily  fresh  free  and 
future-piercing  suggestions  have  an  obvious  share,  I  am 
met  with  nothing  but  vague  cacklings  about  Ibsen  and 
Nietzsche.  .  .  .  Really,  the  English  do  not  deserve  to 
have  great  men." 

G.  Bernard  Shaw  in  Preface  to  "Major  Barbara." 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


By 

Samuel  Butler 

Author  of  "Erewhon,"  "Erewhon  Revisited' 


With  an  Introduction  by 

William  Lyon  Phelps 

Lampion  Professor  of  English  Literature  at  Yale 


'We  know  that  all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them 
that  love  God." — ROM.  viii.  28 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

68  I   FIFTH  AVENUE 
I9l6 


Copyright,  1916, 
BY  E.  P.  BUTTON  &  Co. 


INTRODUCTION 

I  AM  reminded  of  old  Vigneron's  remark  about  Meyer- 
beer; for  Samuel  Butler  died  without  my  noticing  it; 
I  didn't  even  know  he  was  sick.  Shortly  after  his  cre- 
mated ashes  had  been  scattered  to  the  winds  of  heaven, 
a  learned  lady  asked  me  if  I  knew  anything  about 
Samuel  Butler.  Although  I  have  ceased  to  be  shocked 
at  anything  the  azure-footed  say  or  do,  I  did  feel  a 
penumbra  of  chagrin,  for  I  earn  my  bread  by  teaching 
English  Literature.  I  proceeded  to  emit  a  few  platitudes 
about  Hudibras,  when  I  was  sharply  interrupted,  and 
informed  that  the  subject  for  discussion  was  the  great 
Samuel  Butler,  the  Samuel  Butler,  "the  greatest  novelist 
of  the  nineteenth  century."  This  is  a  title  that  few 
writers  of  modern  fiction  have  escaped,  and  I  breathed 
easier.  "Ignorance,  Madam,  pure  ignorance," — how 
often  Johnson  has  helped  us! 

Now  I  am  grateful  to  my  fair  tutor,  for  while  the 
name  of  the  Erewhon  philosopher  must  eventually  have 
penetrated  even  into  academic  circles,  I  might  have  re- 
mained a  few  months  longer  in  the  outer  darkness,  and 
thus  have  postponed  my  acquaintance  with  The  Way  of 
All  Flesh.  Butler  spent  a  good  many  years  writing  this 
extraordinary  book,  and  finished  it  a  good  many  years 
ago,  but  in  1902,  on  his  deathbed,  gave  for  the  first  time 
permission  to  have  it  printed,  characteristically  reversing 
the  conventional  deathbed  repentance  and  confession. 
He,  who  had  abandoned  all  faith  except  in  his  own 
infallibility,  ardently  believed  in  his  posthumous  fame, 
which  has  become  a  reality.  Its  slow  growth  seems  to 
indicate  permanence. 

V 

2051573 


vi  Introduction 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  two  Samuel  Butlers — the 
seventeenth  century  poet  and  the  nineteenth  century 
novelist — should  have  held  precisely  the  same  attitude 
toward  religious  priggery.  Neither  could  endure  the 
organised  and  dominant  church-going-Christianity  of  his 
epoch.  What  the  Burlesquer  said  of  the  Puritans  neatly 
expresses  the  contempt  felt  by  his  namesake. 

A  sect  whose  chief  devotion  lies 
In  odd,  perverse  antipathies, 
In  falling  out  with  that  or  this 
And  finding  somewhat  still  amiss; 
More  peevish,  cross,  and  splenetic 
Than  dog  distract  or  monkey  sick: 
That  with  more  care  keep  holyday 
The  wrong,  than  others  the  right  way; 
Compound  for  sins  they  are  inclined  to 
By  damning  those  they  have  no  mind  to. 

And  the  late  W.  E.  Henley's  summary  of  the  first 
Samuel  Butler  fits  the  second  almost  without  the  change 
of  a  word.  I  give  it  verbatim.  "He  had  an  abundance 
of  wit  of  the  best  and  truest  sort ;  he  was  an  indefatigable 
observer ;  he  knew  opinions  well,  and  books  even  better ; 
he  had  considered  life  acutely  and  severely ;  as  a  rhythm- 
ist  he  proceeded  from  none  and  has  had  no  successor; 
his  vocabulary  is  of  its  kind  incomparable ;  his  work  is  a 
very  hoard  of  sentences  and  saws,  of  vigorous  locutions 
and  picturesque  colloquialisms,  of  strong,  sound  sense 
and  robust  English." 

Bernard  Shaw,  taking  his  eye  off  Brieux  for  a  mo- 
ment, informed  us  that  he  learned  more  from  Butler  than 
from  any  other  writer ;  a  statement  easier  to  believe  than 
some  of  his  affirmations.  Unfortunately  the  disciple  is 
so  much  above  his  lord  in  popular  estimation  that  we 
have  all  been  withholding  honour  where  honour  is  due. 
After  one  has  read  Butler,  one  sees  where  many  of 


Introduction  vii 

Shaw's  perversities  and  ironies  came  from.  The  founda- 
tion of  Butler's  style  is  the  paradox;  moral  dynamics  are 
reversed;  the  unpardonable  sin  is  conventionality.  His 
masterpiece  answers  no  questions;  solves  no  problems; 
chases  away  no  perplexities.  Every  reader  becomes  an 
interrogation  point.  Butler  rubs  our  thoughts  the  wrong 
way.  As  axiom  after  axiom  is  ruthlessly  attacked,  we 
pick  over  our  minds  for  some  missile  to  throw  at  him. 
It  is  a  good  thing  for  every  man  and  woman  whose 
brain  happens  to  be  in  activity  to  read  this  amazingly 
clever,  original,  brilliant,  diabolical  novel.  And  for  those 
whose  brains  are  in  captivity  it  may  smash  some  fetters. 
Every  one  who  understands  what  he  reads  will  take  an 
inventory  of  his  own  religious  and  moral  stock. 

Butler  delighted  in  the  role  of  Advocatus  Diaboli.  In 
his  Note-Books  he  has  the  following  apology  for  the 
Devil :  "It  must  be  remembered  that  we  have  heard 
only  one  side  of  the  case.  God  has  written  all  the  books." 
Well,  He  certainly  did  not  write  this  one;  He  permitted 
the  Devil  to  have  his  hour.  The  worst  misfortune  that 
can  happen  to  any  person,  says  Butler,  is  to  lose  his 
money;  the  second  is  to  lose  his  health;  and  the  loss  of 
reputation  is  a  bad  third.  He  seems  to  have  regarded  the 
death  of  his  father  as  the  most  fortunate  event  in  his 
own  life;  for  it  made  him  financially  independent.  He 
never  quite  forgave  the  old  man  for  hanging  on  till  he 
was  eighty  years  old.  He  ridiculed  the  Bishop  of  Car- 
lisle for  saying  that  we  long  to  meet  our  parents  in  the 
next  world.  "Speaking  for  myself,  I  have  no  wish  to  see 
my  father  again,  and  I  think  it  likely  that  the  Bishop  of 
Carlisle  would  not  be  more  eager  to  see  his  than  I  mine." 
Melchisedec  "was  a  really  happy  man.  He  was  without 
father,  without  mother,  and  without  descent.  He  was 
an  incarnate  bachelor.  He  was  a  born  orphan." 

One  reason  why  The  Way  of  All  Flesh  is  becoming 
every  year  more  widely  known  is  because  it  happens  to 
be  exactly  in  the  literary  form  most  fashionable  in  fiction 


viii  Introduction 

at  this  moment.  It  is  a  "life"  novel — it  is  a  biography, 
which,  of  course,  means  that  it  is  very  largely  an  auto- 
biography. Three  generations  of  the  hero's  family  are 
portrayed  with  much  detail ;  the  plot  of  the  story  is  simply 
chronological;  the  only  agreeable  woman  in  the  book 
was  a  personal  friend  of  the  author.  Not  only  are  hun- 
dreds of  facts  in  the  novelist's  own  life  minutely  recorded, 
it  is  a  spiritual  autobiography  as  well.  It  was  his  habit 
to  carry  a  notebook  in  his  pocket ;  whenever  a  thought  or 
fancy  occurred  to  him,  immediately  to  write  it  down.  An 
immense  number  of  these  fatherless  ideas  are  now  in- 
woven in  this  novel.  The  result  is  that  the  reader  literally 
finds  something  interesting  and  often  something  valuable 
on  every  page.  The  style  is  so  closely  packed  with 
thought  that  it  produces  constant  intellectual  delight. 
This  is  well ;  for  I  can  recall  no  delight  of  any  other  kind. 
Just  as  Samuel  Butler  poured  out  in  Hudibras  the 
accumulated  bottled  venom  and  hatred  of  many  years, 
so  our  novelist  has  released  all  the  repugnance,  the  rebel- 
lion, the  impotent  rage  of  childhood.  He  had  an  excellent 
memory,  and  seems  to  have  forgiven  nothing  and  for- 
gotten nothing  that  happened  to  him  in  the  dependent 
years  of  his  life.  It  is  an  awkward  thing  to  play  with 
souls,  and  Butler  represents  the  souls  of  boys  treated  by 
their  parents  and  by  their  school-teachers  with  astonish- 
ing stupidity  and  blundering  brutality.  It  is  a  wonderful 
treatise  on  the  art  of  how  not  to  bring  up  children ;  and 
I  should  think  that  every  mother,  father,  and  teacher 
would  feel  some  sense  of  shame  and  some  sense  of  fear. 
For  a  good  many  years  children  are  in  the  power  of  their 
elders,  who  so  greatly  excel  them  in  physical  strength  and 
in  cunning;  but  every  child,  no  matter  how  dutifully  he 
may  kiss  the  rod,  becomes  in  after  years  the  Judge  of 
his  parents  and  of  his  teachers.  Butler's  sympathy  with 
children,  whose  little  bodies  and  little  minds  are  often  in 
absolute  bondage  to  parents  both  dull  and  cruel,  is  a 
salient  quality  in  his  work.  One  is  appalled  when  one 


Introduction  ix 

remembers  how  often  the  sensitive  soul  of  a  little  boy  is 
tortured  at  home,  simply  by  coarse  handling.  This  cham- 
pionship of  children  places  Butler  with  Dickens,  though 
I  suppose  such  a  remark  would  have  been  regarded  by 
Butler  as  an  insult. 

I  think  that  the  terrific  attack  on  "professing  Chris- 
tians" made  in  this  novel  will  be  of  real  service  to  Chris- 
tianity. Just  as  men  of  strong  political  opinions  have 
largely  abandoned  the  old  habit  of  reading  the  party 
paper,  and  now  give  their  fiercest  opponents  a  hearing, 
so  I  think  good  Christian  people  will  derive  much  benefit 
from  an  attentive  perusal  of  this  work.  The  religion 
that  Butler  attacks  is  the  religion  of  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees,  and  unless  our  religion  exceeds  that,  none  of 
us  is  going  to  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  Church 
needs  clever,  active  antagonists  to  keep  her  up  to  the 
mark ;  the  principle  of  Good  is  toughened  by  constant 
contact  with  the  principle  of  Evil;  every  minister  ought 
to  have  in  his  audience  a  number  of  brilliant,  determined 
opponents,  who  have  made  up  their  minds  they  will  be- 

(lieve  nothing  he  says;  I  have  no  doubt  that  God  needs 
the  Devil. 

Thus,  although  I  firmly  believe  this  is  a  diabolical 
novel,  I  think  it  will  prove  to  be  of  service  to  Christianity. 
I  know  it  has  done  me  good.  I  cannot  forget  Butler's 
remark  about  all  those  church-goers  who  would  be  equally 
shocked  if  anyone  doubted  Christianity  or  if  anyone  prac- 
tised it. 

Samuel  Butler  was  the  grandson  of  a  Bishop  and  the 
son  of  Thomas  Butler.  He  was  born  in  Nottinghamshire, 
England,  on  the  fourth  of  December,  1835.  Like  his 
father  and  grandfather,  he  went  through  St.  John's  Col- 
lege, Cambridge.  After  graduation,  in  preparation  for 
the  ministry,  he  did  parish  work  among  the  poor  in 
London,  which  convinced  him  that  he  needed  fresh 
woods  and  pastures  new.  In  1859  ne  sailed  for  New 


x  Introduction 

Zealand  and  became  a  successful  sheep-farmer,  appar- 
ently finding  the  animals  more  interesting  than  his  quon- 
dam metropolitan  flock.  He  returned  to  England  in  1864, 
took  lodgings  in  Clifford's  Inn,  and  studied  art.  Some 
of  his  pictures  were  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy. 
He  made  many  journeys  on  the  Continent,  especially  in 
Italy,  and  wrote  many  books,  of  which  The  Way  of  All 
Flesh,  published  in  1903,  is  the  best.  He  died  on  the 
i8th  of  June,  1902. 

Butler's  attitude  toward  everything  except  Handel  and 
himself  was  ironical;  he  delighted  in  ridiculing  any  gen- 
erally-accepted tenet  in  politics,  science,  art,  and  religion. 
This  was  often  done  behind  a  mask  of  grave,  candid 
enquiry,  in  the  manner  of  Swift.  Even  his  personal 
appearance  was  ironical,  for  although  he  could  truth- 
fully have  said,  "I  have  fought  the  good  faith,"  he  looked 
like  a  devout  and  rather  ignorant  evangelical  parson. 

WILLIAM  LYON  PHELPS. 
YALE  UNIVERSITY, 
26  February,  1916. 


Note 


SAMUEL  BUTLER  began  to  write  "The  Way  of  All  Flesh" 
about  the  year  1872,  and  was  engaged  upon  it  intermit- 
tently until  1884.  It  is  therefore,  to  a  great  extent,  con- 
temporaneous with  "Life  and  Habit,"  and  may  be  taken 
as  a  practical  illustration  of  the  theory  of  heredity  em- 
bodied in  that  book.  He  did  not  work  at  it  after  1884, 
but  for  various  reasons  he  postponed  its  publication.  He 
was  occupied  in  other  ways,  and  he  professed  himself  dis- 
satisfied with  it  as  a  whole,  and  always  intended  to  re- 
write or  at  any  rate  to  revise  it.  His  death  in  1902  pre- 
vented him  from  doing  this,  and  on  his  death-bed  he  gave 
me  clearly  to  understand  that  he  wished  it  to  be  published 
in  its  present  form.  I  found  that  the  MS.  of  the  fourth 
and  fifth  chapters  had  disappeared,  but  by  consulting  and 
comparing  various  notes  and  sketches,  which  remained 
among  his  papers,  I  have  been  able  to  supply  the  missing 
chapters  in  a  form  which  I  believe  does  not  differ  materi- 
ally from  that  which  he  finally  adopted.  With  regard  to 
the  chronology  of  the  events  recorded,  the  reader  will  do 
well  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  main  body  of  the  novel  is 
supposed  to  have  been  written  in  the  year  1867,  and  the 
last  chapter  added  as  a  postscript  in  1882. 

R.  A.  STREATFEILD. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


CHAPTER  I 

WHEN  I  was  a  small  boy  at  the  beginning  of  the  century 
I  remember  an  old  man  who  wore  knee-breeches  and 
worsted  stockings,  and  who  used  to  hobble  about  the 
street  of  our  village  with  the  help  of  a  stick.  He  must 
have  been  getting  on  for  eighty  in  the  year  1807,  earlier 
than  which  date  I  suppose  I  can  hardly  remember  him, 
for  I  was  born  in  1802.  A  few  white  locks  hung  about 
his  ears,  his  shoulders  were  bent  and  his  knees  feeble, 
but  he  was  still  hale,  and  was  much  respected  in  our  little 
world  of  Paleham.  His  name  was  Pontifex. 

His  wife  was  said  to  be  his  master;  I  have  been  told 
she  brought  him  a  little  money,  but  it  cannot  have  been 
much.  She  was  a  tall,  square-shouldered  person  (I  have 
heard  my  father  call  her  a  Gothic  woman)  who  had  in- 
sisted on  being  married  to  Mr.  Pontifex  when  he  was 
young  and  too  good-natured  to  say  nay  to  any  woman 
who  wooed  him.  The  pair  had  lived  not  unhappily  to- 
gether, for  Mr.  Pontifex's  temper  was  easy  and  he  soon 
learned  to  bow  before  his  wife's  more  stormy  moods. 

Mr.  Pontifex  was  a  carpenter  by  trade ;  he  was  also  at 
one  time  parish  clerk;  when  I  remember  him,  however, 
he  had  so  far  risen  in  life  as  to  be  no  longer  compelled  to 
work  with  his  own  hands.  In  his  earlier  days  he  had 
taught  himself  to  draw.  I  do  not  say  he  drew  well,  but 
it  was  surprising  he  should  draw  as  well  as  he  did.  My 
father,  who  took  the  living  of  Paleham  about  the  year 


2  The  Way  of  All  FlesH 

1797,  became  possessed  of  a  good  many  of  old  Mr.  Ponti- 
fex's  drawings,  which  were  always  of  local  subjects,  and 
so  unaffectedly  painstaking  that  they  might  have  passed 
for  the  work  of  some  good  early  master.  I  remember 
them  as  hanging  up  framed  and  glazed  in  the  study  at  the 
Rectory,  and  tinted,  as  all  else  in  the  room  was  tinted, 
with  the  green  reflected  from  the  fringe  of  ivy  leaves  that 
grew  around  the  windows.  I  wonder  how  they  will  ac- 
tually cease  and  come  to  an  end  as  drawings,  and  into 
what  new  phases  of  being  they  will  then  enter. 

Not  content  with  being  an  artist,  Mr.  Pontifex  must 
needs  also  be  a  musician.  He  built  the  organ  in  the 
church  with  his  own  hands,  and  made  a  smaller  one 
which  he  kept  in  his  own  house.  He  could  play  as  much 
as  he  could  draw,  not  very  well  according  to  professional 
standards,  but  much  better  than  could  have  been  expected. 
I  myself  showed  a  taste  for  music  at  an  early  age,  and 
old  Mr.  Pontifex  on  finding  it  out,  as  he  soon  did,  be- 
came partial  to  me  in  consequence. 

It  may  be  thought  that  with  so  many  irons  in  the  fire 
he  could  hardly  be  a  very  thriving  man,  but  this  was  not 
the  case.  His  father  had  been  a  day  labourer,  and  he 
had  himself  begun  life  with  no  other  capital  than  his 
good  sense  and  good  constitution;  now,  however,  there 
was  a  goodly  show  of  timber  about  his  yard,  and  a  look 
of  solid  comfort  over  his  whole  establishment.  Towards 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  not  long  before 
my  father  came  to  Paleham,  he  had  taken  a  farm  of 
about  ninety  acres,  thus  making  a  considerable  rise  in 
life.  Along  with  the  farm  there  went  an  old-fashioned 
but  comfortable  house  with  a  charming  garden  and  an 
orchard.  The  carpenter's  business  was  now  carried  on 
in  one  of  the  outhouses  that  had  once  been  part  of  some 
conventual  buildings,  the  remains  of  which  could  be  seen 
in  what  was  called  the  Abbey  Close.  The  house  itself, 
emblossomed  in  honeysuckles  and  creeping  roses,  was  an 
ornament  to  the  whole  village,  nor  were  its  internal  ar- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  3 

rangements  less  exemplary  than  its  outside  was  orna- 
mental. Report  said  that  Mrs.  Pontifex  starched  the 
sheets  for  her  best  bed,  and  I  can  well  believe  it. 

How  well  do  I  remember  her  parlour  half  filled  with 
the  organ  which  her  husband  had  built,  and  scented  with 
a  withered  apple  or  two  from  the  pyrus  japonica  that 
grew  outside  the  house ;  the  picture  of  the  prize  ox  over 
the  chimney-piece,  which  Mr.  Pontifex  himself  had 
painted;  the  transparency  of  the  man  coming  to  show 
light  to  a  coach  upon  a  snowy  night,  also  by  Mr.  Ponti- 
fex ;  the  little  old  man  and  little  old  woman  who  told  the 
weather ;  the  china  shepherd  and  shepherdess ;  the  jars  of 
feathery  flowering  grasses  with  a  peacock's  feather  or 
two  among  them  to  set  them  off,  and  the  china  bowls  full 
of  dead  rose  leaves  dried  with  bay  salt.  All  has  long 
since  vanished  and  become  a  memory,  faded  but  still  fra- 
grant to  myself. 

Nay,  but  her  kitchen — and  the  glimpses  into  a  cavern- 
ous cellar  beyond  it,  wherefrom  came  gleams  from  the 
pale  surfaces  of  milk  cans,  or  it  may  be  of  the  arms  and 
face  of  a  milkmaid  skimming  the  cream;  or  again  her 
storeroom,  where  among  other  treasures  she  kept  the 
famous  lipsalve  which  was  one  of  her  especial  glories, 
and  of  which  she  would  present  a  shape  yearly  to  those 
whom  she  delighted  to  honour.  She  wrote  out  the  recipe 
for  this  and  gave  it  to  my  mother  a  year  or  two  before 
she  died,  but  we  could  never  make  it  as  she  did.  When 
we  were  children  she  used  sometimes  to  send  her  respects 
to  my  mother,  and  ask  leave  for  us  to  come  and  take  tea 
with  her.  Right  well  she  used  to  ply  us.  As  for  her 
temper,  we  never  met  such  a  delightful  old  lady  in  our 
lives;  whatever  Mr.  Pontifex  may  have  had  to  put  up 
with,  we  had  no  cause  for  complaint,  and  then  Mr.  Pon- 
tifex would  play  to  us  upon  the  organ,  and  we  would 
stand  round  him  open-mouthed  and  think  him  the  most 
wonderfully  clever  man  that  ever  was  born,  except  of 
course  our  papa. 


4  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Mrs.  Pontifex  had  no  sense  of  humour,  at  least  I  can 
call  to  mind  no  signs  of  this,  but  her  husband  had  plenty 
of  fun  in  him,  though  few  would  have  guessed  it  from 
his  appearance.  I  remember  my  father  once  sent  me 
down  to  his  workshop  to  get  some  glue,  and  I  happened 
to  come  when  old  Pontifex  was  in  the  act  of  scolding  his 
boy.  He  had  got  the  lad — a  pudding-headed  fellow — by 
the  ear  and  was  saying,  "What  ?  Lost  again — smothered 
o'  wit."  (I  believe  it  was  the  boy  who  was  himself  sup- 
posed to  be  a  wandering  soul,  and  who  was  thus  ad- 
dressed as  lost.)  "Now,  look  here,  my  lad,"  he  contin- 
ued, "some  boys  are  born  stupid,  and  thou  art  one  of 
them;  some  achieve  stupidity — that's  thee  again,  Jim — 
thou  wast  both  born  stupid  and  hast  greatly  increased  thy 
birthright — and  some"  (and  here  came  a  climax  during 
which  the  boy's  head  and  ear  were  swayed  from  side  to 
side)  "have  stupidity  thrust  upon  them,  which,  if  it 
please  the  Lord,  shall  not  be  thy  case,  my  lad,  for  I  will 
thrust  stupidity  from  thee,  though  I  have  to  box  thine  ears 
in  doing  so,"  but  I  did  not  see  that  the  old  man  really  did 
box  Jim's  ears,  or  do  more  than  pretend  to  frighten  him, 
for  the  two  understood  one  another  perfectly  well.  An- 
other time  I  remember  hearing  him  call  the  village  rat- 
catcher by  saying,  "Come  hither,  thou  three-days-and- 
three-nights,  thou,"  alluding,  as  I  afterwards  learned,  to 
the  rat-catcher's  periods  of  intoxication;  but  I  will  tell 
no  more  of  such  trifles.  My  father's  face  would  always 
brighten  when  old  Pontifex's  name  was  mentioned.  "I 
tell  you,  Edward,"  he  would  say  to  me,  "old  Pontifex 
was  not  only  an  able  man,  but  he  was  one  of  the  very 
ablest  men  that  ever  I  knew." 

This  was  more  than  I  as  a  young  man  was  prepared 
to  stand.  "My  dear  father,"  I  answered,  "what  did  he 
do?  He  could  draw  a  little,  but  could  he  to  save  his  life 
have  got  a  picture  into  the  Royal  Academy  exhibition? 
He  built  two  organs  and  could  play  the  Minuet  in  Sam- 
son on  one  and  the  March  in  Scipio  on  the  other ;  he  was 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  5 

a  good  carpenter  and  a  bit  of  a  wag;  he  was  a  good  old 
fellow  enough,  but  why  make  him  out  so  much  abler 
than  he  was  ?" 

"My  boy,"  returned  my  father,  "you  must  not  judge 
by  the  work,  but  by  the  work  in  connection  with  the  sur- 
roundings. Could  Giotto  or  Filippo  Lippi,  think  you, 
have  got  a  picture  into  the  Exhibition?  Would  a  single 
one  of  those  frescoes  we  went  to  see  when  we  were  at 
Padua  have  the  remotest  chance  of  being  hung,  if  it  were 
sent  in  for  exhibition  now?  Why,  the  Academy  people 
would  be  so  outraged  that  they  would  not  even  write  to 
poor  Giotto  to  tell  him  to  come  and  take  his  fresco  away. 
Phew !"  continued  he,  waxing  warm,  "if  old  Pontifex 
had  had  Cromwell's  chances  he  would  have  done  all  that 
Cromwell  did,  and  have  done  it  better ;  if  he  had  had 
Giotto's  chances  he  would  have  done  all  that  Giotto  did, 
and  done  it  no  worse ;  as  it  was,  he  was  a  village  carpen- 
ter, and  I  will  undertake  to  say  he  never  scamped  a  job 
in  the  whole  course  of  his  life." 

"But,"  said  I,  "we  cannot  judge  people  with  so  many 
'ifs.'  If  old  Pontifex  had  lived  in  Giotto's  time  he 
might  have  been  another  Giotto,  but  he  did  not  live  in 
Giotto's  time." 

"I  tell  you,  Edward,"  said  my  father  with  some  se- 
verity, "we  must  judge  men  not  so  much  by  what  they 
do,  as  by  what  they  make  us  feel  that  they  have  it  in  them 
to  do.  If  a  man  has  done  enough,  either  in  painting, 
music  or  the  affairs  of  life,  to  make  me  feel  that  I  might 
trust  him  in  an  emergency  he  has  done  enough.  It  is  not 
by  what  a  man  has  actually  put  upon  his  canvas,  nor  yet 
by  the  acts  which  he  has  set  down,  so  to  speak,  upon 
the  canvas  of  his  life  that  I  will  judge  him,  but  by  what 
he  makes  me  feel  that  he  felt  and  aimed  at.  If  he  has 
made  me  feel  that  he  felt  those  things  to  be  lovable 
which  I  hold  lovable  myself  I  ask  no  more;  his  gram- 
mar may  have  been  imperfect,  but  still  I  have  understood 
him ;  he  and  I  are  en  rapport;  and  I  say  again,  Edward, 


6  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

that  old  Pontifex  was  not  only  an  able  man,  but  one  of 
the  very  ablest  men  I  ever  knew." 

Against  this  there  was  no  more  to  be  said,  and  my  sis- 
ters eyed  me  to  silence.  Somehow  or  other  my  sisters 
always  did  eye  me  to  silence  when  I  differed  from  my 
father. 

"Talk  of  his  successful  son,"  snorted  my  father,  whom 
I  had  fairly  roused.  "He  is  not  fit  to  black  his  father's 
boots.  He  has  his  thousands  of  pounds  a  year,  while  his 
father  had  perhaps  three  thousand  shillings  a  year 
towards  the  end  of  his  life.  He  is  a  successful  man ;  but 
his  father,  hobbling  about  Paleham  Street  in  his  grey 
worsted  stockings,  broad  brimmed  hat  and  brown  swal- 
low-tailed coat,  was  worth  a  hundred  of  George  Ponti- 
fexes,  for  all  his  carriages  and  horses  and  the  airs  he 
gives  himself." 

"But  yet,"  he  added,  "George  Pontifex  is  no  fool 
either."  And  this  brings  us  to  the  second  generation  of 
the  Pontifex  family  with  whom  we  need  concern  our- 
selves. 


CHAPTER  II 

OLD  Mr.  Pontifex  had  married  in  the  year  1750,  but  for 
fifteen  years  his  wife  bore  no  children.  At  the  end  of 
that  time  Mrs.  Pontifex  astonished  the  whole  village  by 
showing  unmistakable  signs  of  a  disposition  to  present 
her  husband  with  an  heir  or  heiress.  Hers  had  long  ago 
been  considered  a  hopeless  case,  and  when  on  consulting 
the  doctor  concerning  the  meaning  of  certain  symptoms 
she  was  informed  of  their  significance,  she  became  very 
angry  and  abused  the  doctor  roundly  for  talking  non- 
sense. She  refused  to  put  so  much  as  a  piece  of  thread 
into  a  needle  in  anticipation  of  her  confinement  and 
would  have  been  absolutely  unprepared,  if  her  neigh- 
bours had  not  been  better  judges  of  her  condition  than 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  7 

she  was,  and  got  things  ready  without  telling  her  any- 
thing about  it.  Perhaps  she  feared  Nemesis,  though  as- 
suredly she  knew  not  who  or  what  Nemesis  was ;  perhaps 
she  feared  the  doctor  had  made  a  mistake  and  she  should 
be  laughed  at;  from  whatever  cause,  however,  her  re- 
fusal to  recognise  the  obvious  arose,  she  certainly  re- 
fused to  recognise  it,  until  one  snowy  night  in  January 
the  doctor  was  sent  for  with  all  urgent  speed  across  the 
rough  country  roads.  When  he  arrived  he  found  two 
patients,  not  one,  in  need  of  his  assistance,  for  a  boy  had 
been  born  who  was  in  due  time  christened  George,  in 
honour  of  his  then  reigning  majesty. 

To  the  best  of  my  belief  George  Pontifex  got  the 
greater  part  of  his  nature  from  this  obstinate  old  lady,  his 
mother — a  mother  who  though  she  loved  no  one  else  in 
the  world  except  her  husband  (and  him  only  after  a 
fashion)  was  most  tenderly  attached  to  the  unexpected 
child  of  her  old  age;  nevertheless  she  showed  it  little. 

The  boy  grew  up  into  a  sturdy  bright-eyed  little  fellow, 
with  plenty  of  intelligence,  and  perhaps  a  trifle  too  great 
readiness  at  book  learning.  Being  kindly  treated  at 
home,  he  was  as  fond  of  his  father  and  mother  as  it  was 
in  his  nature  to  be  of  anyone,  but  he  was  fond  of  no  one 
else.  He  had  a  good  healthy  sense  of  m'eum,  and  as 
little  of  tuum  as  he  could  help.  Brought  up  much  in 
the  open  air  in  one  of  the  best  situated  and  healthiest  vil- 
lages in  England,  his  little  limbs  had  fair  play,  and  in 
those  days  children's  brains  were  not  overtasked  as  they 
now  are;  perhaps  it  was  for  this  very  reason  that  the 
boy  showed  an  avidity  to  learn.  At  seven  or  eight  years 
old  he  could  read,  write  and  sum  better  than  any  other 
boy  of  his  age  in  the  village.  My  father  was  not  yet 
rector  of  Paleham,  and  did  not  remember  George  Ponti- 
fex's  childhood,  but  I  have  heard  neighbours  tell  him 
that  the  boy  was  looked  upon  as  unusually  quick  and  for- 
ward. His  father  and  mother  were  naturally  proud  of 
their  offspring,  and  his  mother  was  determined  that  he 


8  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

should  one  day  become  one  of  the  kings  and  councillor^ 
of  the  earth. 

It  is  one  thing,  however,  to  resolve  that  one's  son  'shall 
win  some  of  life's  larger  prizes,  and  another  to  square 
matters  with  fortune  in  this  respect.  George  Pontifex 
might  have  been  brought  up  as  a  carpenter  and  succeeded 
in  no  other  way  than  as  succeeding  his  father  as  one  of 
the  minor  magnates  of  Paleham,  and  yet  have  been  a 
more  truly  successful  man  than  he  actually  was — for  I 
take  it  there  is  not  much  more  solid  success  in  this  world 
than  what  fell  to  the  lot  of  old  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pontifex ; 
it  happened,  however,  that  about  the  year  1780,  when 
George  was  a  boy  of  fifteen,  a  sister  of  Mrs.  Pontifex's, 
who  had  married  a  Mr.  Fairlie,  came  to  pay  a  few  days' 
visit  at  PaJeham.  Mr.  Fairlie  was  a  publisher,  chiefly  of 
religious  works,  and  had  an  establishment  in  Paternoster 
Row;  he  had  risen  in  life,  and  his  wife  had  risen  with 
him.  No  very  close  relations  had  been  maintained  be- 
tween the  sisters  for  some  years,  and  I  forget  exactly 
how  it  came  about  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fairlie  were  guests 
in  the  quiet  but  exceedingly  comfortable  house  of  their 
sister  and  brother-in-law;  but  for  some  reason  or  other 
the  visit  was  paid,  and  little  George  soon  succeeded  in 
making  his  way  into  his  uncle  and  aunt's  good  graces.  A 
quick,  intelligent  boy  with  a  good  address,  a  sound  con- 
stitution, and  coming  of  respectable  parents,  has  a  poten- 
tial value  which  a  practised  business  man  who  has  need 
of  many  subordinates  is  little  likely  to  overlook.  Before 
his  visit  was  over  Mr.  Fairlie  proposed  to  the  lad's  father 
and  mother  that  he  should  put  him  into  his  own  business, 
at  the  same  time  promising  that  if  the  boy  did  well  he 
should  not  want  some  one  to  bring  him  forward.  Mrs. 
Pontifex  had  her  son's  interest  too  much  at  heart  to 
refuse  such  an  offer,  so  the  matter  was  soon  arranged, 
and  about  a  fortnight  after  the  Fairlies  had  left,  George 
was  sent  up  by  coach  to  London,  where  he  was  met  by 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  9 

his  uncle  and  aunt,  with  whom  it  was  arranged  that  he 
should  live. 

This  was  George's  great  start  in  life.  He  now  wore 
more  fashionable  clothes  than  he  had  yet  been  accus- 
tomed to,  and  any  little  rusticity  of  gait  or  pronunciation 
which  he  had  brought  from  Paleham,  was  so  quickly  and 
completely  lost  that  it  was  ere  long  impossible  to  detect 
that  he  had  not  been  born  and  bred  among  people  of  what 
is  commonly  called  education.  The  boy  paid  great  atten- 
tion to  his  work,  and  more  than  justified  the  favourable 
opinion  which  Mr.  Fairlie  had  formed  concerning  him. 
Sometimes  Mr.  Fairlie  would  send  him  down  to  Paleham 
for  a  few  days'  holiday,  and  ere  long  his  parents  per- 
ceived that  he  had  acquired  an  air  and  manner  of  talking 
different  from  any  that  he  had  taken  with  him  from 
Paleham.  They  were  proud  of  him,  and  soon  fell  into 
their  proper  places,  resigning  all  appearance  of  a  parental 
control,  for  which  indeed  there  was  no  kind  of  necessity. 
In  return,  George  was  always  kindly  to  them,  and  to  the 
end  of  his  life  retained  a  more  affectionate  feeling 
towards  his  father  and  mother  than  I  imagine  him  ever 
to  have  felt  again  for  man,  woman,  or  child. 

George's  visits  to  Paleham  were  never  long,  for  the 
distance  from  London  was  under  fifty  miles  and  there 
was  a  direct  coach,  so  that  the  journey  was  easy;  there 
was  not  time,  therefore,  for  the  novelty  to  wear  off  either 
on  the  part  of  the  young  man  or  of  his  parents.  George 
liked  the  fresh  country  air  and  green  fields  after  the 
darkness  to  which  he  had  been  so  long  accustomed  in 
Paternoster  Row,  which  then,  as  now,  was  a  narrow 
gloomy  lane  rather  than  a  street.  Independently  of  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  the  familiar  faces  of  the  farmers  and 
villagers,  he  liked  also  being  seen  and  being  congratulated 
on  growing  up  such  a  fine-looking  and  fortunate  young 
fellow,  for  he  was  not  the  youth  to  hide  his  light  under  a 
bushel.  His  uncle  had  had  him  taught  Latin  and  Greek 


io          The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

of  an  evening ;  he  had  taken  kindly  to  these  languages  and 
had  rapidly  and  easily  mastered  what  many  boys  take 
years  in  acquiring.  I  suppose  his  knowledge  gave  him  a 
self-confidence  which  made  itself  felt  whether  he  in- 
tended it  or  not;  at  any  rate,  he  soon  began  to  pose  as  a 
judge  of  literature,  and  from  this  to  being  a  judge  of  art, 
architecture,  music  and  everything  else,  the  path  was 
easy.  Like  his  father,  he  knew  the  value  of  money,  but 
he  was  at  once  more  ostentatious  and  less  liberal  than  his 
father;  while  yet  a  boy  he  was  a  thorough  little  man  of 
the  world,  and  did  well  rather  upon  principles  which  he 
had  tested  by  personal  experiment,  and  recognised  as 
principles,  than  from  those  profounder  convictions 
which  in  his  father  were  so  instinctive  that  he  could  give 
no  account  concerning  them. 

His  father,  as  I  have  said,  wondered  at  him  and  let 
him  alone.  His  son  had  fairly  distanced  him,  and  in  an 
inarticulate  way  the  father  knew  it  perfectly  well.  After 
a  few  years  he  took  to  wearing  his  best  clothes  whenever 
his  son  came  to  stay  with  him,  nor  would  he  discard 
them  for  his  ordinary  ones  till  the  young  man  had  re- 
turned to  London.  I  believe  old  Mr.  Pontifex,  along 
with  his  pride  and  affection,  felt  also  a  certain  fear  of 
his  son,  as  though  of  something  which  he  could  not  thor- 
oughly understand,  and  whose  ways,  notwithstanding 
outward  agreement,  were  nevertheless  not  as  his  ways. 
Mrs.  Pontifex  felt  nothing  of  this;  to  her  George  was 
pure  and  absolute  perfection,  and  she  saw,  or  thought 
she  saw,  with  pleasure,  that  he  resembled  her  and  her 
family  in  feature  as  well  as  in  disposition  rather  than 
her  husband  and  his. 

When  George  was  about  twenty-five  years  old  his 
uncle  took  him  into  partnership  on  very  liberal  terms. 
He  had  little  cause  to  regret  this  step.  The  young  man 
infused  fresh  vigour  into  a  concern  that  was  already  vig- 
orous, and  by  the  time  he  was  thirty  found  himself  in  the 
receipt  of  not  less  than  £1500  a  year  as  his  share  of  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  II 

profits.  Two  years  later  he  married  a  lady  about  seven 
years  younger  than  himself,  who  brought  him  a  hand- 
some dowry.  She  died  in  1805,  when  her  youngest  child 
Alethea  was  born,  and  her  husband  did  not  marry  again. 


CHAPTER  III 

IN  the  early  years  of  the  century  five  little  children  and  a 
couple  of  nurses  began  to  make  periodical  visits  to  Pale- 
ham.  It  is  needless  to  say  they  were  a  rising  generation 
of  Pontifexes,  towards  whom  the  old  couple,  their  grand- 
parents, were  as  tenderly  deferential  as  they  would  have 
been  to  the  children  of  the  Lord  Lieutenant  oi  the 
County.  Their  names  were  Eliza,  Maria,  John,  Theobald 
(who  like  myself  was  born  in  1802),  and  Alethea.  Mr. 
Pontifex  always  put  the  prefix  "master"  or  "miss"  be- 
fore the  names  of  his  grandchildren,  except  in  the  case 
of  Alethea,  who  was  his  favourite.  To  have  resisted 
his  grandchildren  would  have  been  as  impossible  for 
him  as  to  have  resisted  his  wife;  even  old  Mrs.  Pontifex 
yielded  before  her  son's  children,  and  gave  them  all  man- 
ner of  licence  which  she  would  never  have  allowed  even 
to  my  sisters  and  myself,  who  stood  next  in  her  regard. 
Two  regulations  only  they  must  attend  to ;  they  must 
wipe  their  shoes  well  on  coming  into  the  house,  and 
they  must  not  overfeed  Mr.  Pontifex's  organ  with  wind, 
nor  take  the  pipes  out. 

By  us  at  the  Rectory  there  was  no  time  so  much  looked 
forward  to  as  the  annual  visit  of  the  little  Pontifexes  to 
Paleham.  We  came  in  for  some  of  the  prevailing  li- 
cence; we  went  to  tea  with  Mrs.  Pontifex  to  meet  her 
grandchildren,  and  then  our  young  friends  were  asked 
to  the  Rectory  to  have  tea  with  us,  and  we  had  what  we 
considered  great  times.  I  fell  desperately  in  love  with 
Alethea,  indeed  we  all  fell  in  love  with  each  other,  plu- 
rality and  exchange  whether  of  wives  or  husbands  being 


12  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

openly  and  unblushingly  advocated  in  the  very  presence 
of  our  nurses.  We  were  very  merry,  but  it  is  so  long 
ago  that  I  have  forgotten  nearly  everything  save  that  we 
were  very  merry.  Almost  the  only  thing  that  remains 
with  me  as  a  permanent  impression  was  the  fact  that 
Theobald  one  day  beat  his  nurse  and  teased  her,  and 
when  she  said  she  should  go  away  cried  out,  "You  shan't 
go  away — I'll  keep  you  on  purpose  to  torment  you." 

One  winter's  morning,  however,  in  the  year  1811,  we 
heard  the  church  bell  tolling  while  we  were  dressing  in 
the  back  nursery  and  were  told  it  was  for  old  Mrs.  Pon- 
tifex.  Our  manservant  John  told  us  and  added  with 
grim  levity  that  they  were  ringing  the  bell  to  come  and 
take  her  away.  She  had  had  a  fit  of  paralysis  which  had 
carried  her  off  quite  suddenly.  It  was  very  shocking, 
the  more  so  because  our  nurse  assured  us  that  if  God 
chose  we  might  all  have  fits  of  paralysis  ourselves  that 
very  day  and  be  taken  straight  off  to  the  Day  of  Judge- 
ment. The  Day  of  Judgement  indeed,  according  to  the 
opinion  of  those  who  were  most  likely  to  know,  would 
not  under  any  circumstances  be  delayed  more  than  a 
few  years  longer,  and  then  the  whole  world  would  be 
burned,  and  we  ourselves  be  consigned  to  an  eternity  of 
torture,  unless  we  mended  our  ways  more  than  we  at 
present  seemed  at  all  likely  to  do.  All  this  wa"s  so  alarm- 
ing that  we  fell  to  screaming  and  made  such  a  hullabaloo 
that  the  nurse  was  obliged  for  her  own  peace  to  reassure 
us.  Then  we  wept,  but  more  composedly,  as  we  remem- 
bered that  there  would  be  no  more  tea  and  cakes  for  us 
now  at  old  Mrs.  Pontifex's. 

On  the  day  of  the  funeral,  however,  we  had  a  great 
excitement ;  old  Mr.  Pontifex  sent  round  a  penny  loaf  to 
every  inhabitant  of  the  village  according  to  a  custom  still 
not  uncommon  at  the  beginning  of  the  century ;  the  loaf 
was  called  a  dole.  -We  had  never  heard  of  this  custom 
before,  besides,  though  we  had  often  heard  of  penny 
loaves,  we  had  never  before  seen  one;  moreover,  they 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  13 

were  presents  to  us  as  inhabitants  of  the  village,  and  we 
were  treated  as  grown  up  people,  for  our  father  and 
mother  and  the  servants  had  each  one  loaf  sent  them,  but 
only  one.  We  had  never  yet  suspected  that  we  were  in- 
habitants at  all ;  finally,  the  little  loaves  were  new,  and 
we  were  passionately  fond  of  new  bread,  which  we  were 
seldom  or  never  allowed  to  have,  as  it  was  supposed  not 
to  be  good  for  us.  Our  affection,  therefore,  for  our  old 
friend  had  to  stand  against  the  combined  attacks  of 
archaeological  interest,  the  rights  of  citizenship  and  prop- 
erty, the  pleasantness  to  the  eye  and  goodness  for  food 
of  the  little  loaves  themselves,  and  the  sense  of  impor- 
tance which  was  given  us  by  our  having  been  intimate 
with  someone  who  had  actually  died.  It  seemed  upon 
further  inquiry  that  there  was  little  reason  to  anticipate 
an  early  death  for  anyone  of  ourselves,  and  this  being  so, 
we  rather  liked  the  idea  of  someone  else's  being  put  away 
into  the  churchyard ;  we  passed,  therefore,  in  a  short  time 
from  extreme  depression  to  a  no  less  extreme  exultation ; 
a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  had  been  revealed  to  us 
in  our  perception  of  the  possibility  of  benefiting  by  the 
death  of  our  friends,  and  I  fear  that  for  some  time  we 
took  an  interest  in  the  health  of  everyone  in  the  village 
whose  position  rendered  a  repetition  of  the  dole  in  the 
least  likely. 

Those  were  the  days  in  which  all  great  things  seemed 
far  off,  and  we  were  astonished  to  find  that  Napoleon 
Buonaparte  was  an  actually  living  person.  We  had 
thought  such  a  great  man  could  only  have  lived  a  very 
long  time  ago,  and  here  he  was  after  all  almost  as  it  were 
at  our  own  doors.  This  lent  colour  to  the  view  that  the 
Day  of  Judgement  might  indeed  be  nearer  than  we  had 
thought,  but  nurse  said  that  was  all  right  now,  and  she 
knew.  In  those  days  the  snow  lay  longer  and  drifted 
deeper  in  the  lanes  than  it  does  now,  and  the  milk  was 
sometimes  brought  in  frozen  in  winter,  and  we  were 
taken  down  into  the  back  kitchen  to  see  it.  I  suppose 


14  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

there  are  rectories  up  and  down  the  country  now  where 
the  milk  comes  in  frozen  sometimes  in  winter,  and  the 
children  go  down  to  wonder  at  it,  but  I  never  see  any 
frozen  milk  in  London,  so  I  suppose  the  winters  are 
warmer  than  they  used  to  be. 

About  one  year  after  his  wife's  death  Mr.  Pontifex 
also  was  gathered  to  his  fathers.  My  father  saw  him 
the  day  before  he  died.  The  old  man  had  a  theory  about 
sunsets,  and  had  had  two  steps  built  up  against  a  wall 
in  the  kitchen  garden  on  which  he  used  to  stand  and 
watch  the  sun  go  down  whenever  it  was  clear.  My  father 
came  on  him  in  the  afternoon,  just  as  the  sun  was  set- 
ting, and  saw  him  with  his  arms  resting  on  the  top  of 
the  wall  looking  towards  the  sun  over  a  field  through 
which  there  was  a  path  on  which  my  father  was.  My 
father  heard  him  say  "Good-bye,  sun ;  good-bye,  sun," 
as  the  sun  sank,  and  saw  by  his  tone  and  manner  that  he 
was  feeling  very  feeble.  Before  the  next  sunset  he  was 
gone. 

There  was  no  dole.  Some  of  his  grandchildren  were 
brought  to  the  funeral  and  we  remonstrated  with  them, 
but  did  not  take  much  by  doing  so.  John  Pontifex,  who 
was  a  year  older  than  I  was,  sneered  at  penny  loaves, 
and  intimated  that  if  I  wanted  one  it  must  be  because  my 
papa  and  mamma  could  not  afford  to  buy  me  one, 
whereon  I  believe  we  did  something  like  fighting,  and  I 
rather  think  John  Pontifex  got  the  worst  of  it,  but  it 
may  have  been  the  other  way.  I  remember  my  sister's 
nurse,  for  I  was  just  outgrowing  nurses  myself,  reported 
the  matter  to  higher  quarters,  and  we  were  all  of  us  put 
to  some  ignominy,  but  we  had  been  thoroughly  awakened 
from  our  dream,  and  it  was  long  enough  before  we 
could  hear  the  words  "penny  loaf"  mentioned  without 
our  ears  tingling  with  shame.  If  there  had  been  a  dozen 
doles  afterwards  we  should  not  have  deigned  to  touch 
one  of  them. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  15 

George  Pontifex  put  up  a  monument  to  his  parents,  a 
plain  slab  in  Paleham  church,  inscribed  with  the  follow- 
ing epitaph: — 

SACRED  TO  THE  MEMORY 

OF 
JOHN  PONTIFEX 

WHO   WAS    BORN    AUGUST  IOTH,    1727,   AND  DIED   FEBRUARY  8,    l8l2, 

IN   HIS   85TH    YEAR, 

AND  OF 

RUTH  PONTIFEX,  HIS  WIFE, 

WHO    WAS    BORN    OCTOBER    13,    1727,    AND    DIED    JANUARY    IO,    l8ll, 
IN    HER   &4TH   YEAR. 

THEY   WERE  UNOSTENTATIOUS  BUT  EXEMPLARY 

IN  THE  DISCHARGE  OF  THEIR 

RELIGIOUS,    MORAL,   AND   SOCIAL  DUTIES. 

THIS   MONUMENT  WAS  PLACED 

BY  THEIR  ONLY  SON. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  a  year  or  two  more  came  Waterloo  and  the  European 
peace.  Then  Mr.  George  Pontifex  went  abroad  more 
than  once.  I  remember  seeing  at  Battersby  in  after 
years  the  diary  which  he  kept  on  the  first  of  these  occa- 
sions. It  is  a  characteristic  document.  I  felt  as  I  read 
it  that  the  author  before  starting  had  made  up  his  mind 
to  admire  only  what  he  thought  it  would  be  creditable  in 
him  to  admire,  to  look  at  nature  and  art  only  through  the 
spectacles  that  had  been  handed  down  to  him  by  genera- 
tion after  generation  of  prigs  and  impostors.  The  first 
glimpse  of  Mont  Blanc  threw  Mr.  Pontifex  into  a  con- 
ventional ecstasy.  "My  feelings  I  cannot  express.  I 
gasped,  yet  hardly  dared  to  breathe,  as  I  viewed  for  the 
first  time  the  monarch  of  the  mountains.  I  seemed  to 
fancy  the  genius  seated  on  his  stupendous  throne  far 


16  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

above  his  aspiring  brethren  and  in  his  solitary  might  de- 
fying the  universe.  I  was  so  overcome  by  my  feelings 
that  I  was  almost  bereft  of  my  faculties,  and  would  not 
for  worlds  have  spoken  after  my  first  exclamation  till  I 
found  some  relief  in  a  gush  of  tears.  With  pain  I  tore 
myself  from  contemplating  for  the  first  time  'at  distance 
dimly  seen'  (though  I  felt  as  if  I  had  sent  my  soul  and 
eyes  after  it),  this  sublime  spectacle."  After  a  nearer 
view  of  the  Alps  from  above  Geneva  he  walked  nine  out 
of  the  twelve  miles  of  the  descent :  "My  mind  and  heart 
were  too  full  to  sit  still,  and  I  found  some  relief  by  ex- 
hausting my  feelings  through  exercise."  In  the  course 
of  time  he  reached  Chamonix  and  went  on  a  Sunday  to 
the  Montanvert  to  see  the  Mer  de  Glace.  There  he  wrote 
the  following  verses  for  the  visitors'  book,  which  he  con- 
sidered, so  he  says,  "suitable  to  the  day  and  scene" : — 

Lord,  while  these  wonders  of  thy  hand  I  see, 
My  soul  in  holy  reverence  bends  to  thee. 
These  awful  solitudes,  this  dread  repose, 
Yon  pyramid  sublime  of  spotless  snows, 
These  spiry  pinnacles,  those  smiling  plains, 
This  sea  where  one  eternal  winter  reigns, 
These  are  thy  works,  and  while  on  them  I  gaze 
I  hear  a  silent  tongue  that  speaks  thy  praise. 

Some  poets  always  begin  to  get  groggy  about  the  knees 
after  running  for  seven  or  eight  lines.  Mr.  Pontifex's 
last  couplet  gave  him  a  lot  of  trouble,  and  nearly  every 
word  has  been  erased  and  rewritten  once  at  least.  In 
the  visitors'  book  at  the  Montanvert,  however,  he  must 
have  been  obliged  to  commit  himself  definitely  to  one 
reading  or  another.  Taking  the  verses  all  round,  I  should 
say  that  Mr.  Pontifex  was  right  in  considering  them 
suitable  to  the  day;  I  don't  like  being  too  hard  even  on 
the  Mer  de  Glace,  so  will  give  no  opinion  as  to  whether 
they  are  suitable  to  the  scene  also. 

Mr.  Pontifex  went  on  to  the  Great  St.  Bernard  and 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  17 

there  he  wrote  some  more  verses,  this  time  I  am  afraid  in 
Latin.  He  also  took  good  care  to  be  properly  impressed 
by  the  Hospice  and  its  situation.  "The  whole  of  this 
most  extraordinary  journey  seemed  like  a  dream,  its  con- 
clusion especially,  in  gentlemanly  society,  with  every 
comfort  and  accommodation  amidst  the  rudest  rocks  and 
in  the  region  of  perpetual  snow.  The  thought  that  I 
was  sleeping  in  a  convent  and  occupied  the  bed  of  no 
less  a  person  than  Napoleon,  that  I  was  in  the  highest  in- 
habited spot  in  the  old  world  and  in  a  place  celebrated 
in  every  part  of  it,  kept  me  awake  some  time."  As  a 
contrast  to  this,  I  may  quote  here  an  extract  from  a  let- 
ter written  to  me  last  year  by  his  grandson  Ernest,  of 
whom  the  reader  will  hear  more  presently.  The  passage 
runs :  "I  went  up  to  the  Great  St.  Bernard  and  saw  the 
dogs."  In  due  course  Mr.  Pontifex  found  his  way  into 
Italy,  where  the  pictures  and  other  works  of  art — those, 
at  least,  which  were  fashionable  at  that  time — threw  him 
into  genteel  paroxysms  of  admiration.  Of  the  Uffizi 
Gallery  at  Florence  he  writes :  "I  have  spent  three  hours 
this  morning  in  the  gallery  and  I  have  made  up  my  mind 
that  if  of  all  the  treasures  I  have  seen  in  Italy  I  were 
to  choose  one  room  it  would  be  the  Tribune  of  this  gal- 
lery. It  contains  the  Venus  de'  Medici,  the  Explorator, 
the  Pancratist,  the  Dancing  Faun  and  a  fine  Apollo. 
These  more  than  outweigh  the  Laocoon  and  the  Belve- 
dere Apollo  at  Rome.  It  contains,  besides,  the  St.  John 
of  Raphael  and  many  other  chefs-d'oeuvre  of  the  greatest 
masters  in  the  world."  It  is  interesting  to  compare  Mr. 
Pontifex's  effusions  with  the  rhapsodies  of  critics  in  our 
own  times.  Not  long  ago  a  much  esteemed  writer  in- 
formed the  world  that  he  felt  "disposed  to  cry  out  with 
delight"  before  a  figure  by  Michael  Angelo.  I  wonder 
wjiether  he  would  feel  disposed  to  cry  out  before  a  real 
Michael  Angelo,  if  the  critics  had  decided  that  it  was  not 
genuine,  or  before  a  reputed  Michael  Angelo  which  was 
really  by  someone  else.  But  I  suppose  that  a  prig  with 


i8  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

more  money  than  brains  was  much  the  same  sixty  or 
seventy  years  ago  as  he  is  now. 

Look  at  Mendelssohn  again  about  this  same  Tribune 
on  which  Mr.  Pontifex  felt  so  safe  in  staking  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  man  of  taste  and  culture.  He  feels  no  less  safe 
and  writes,  "I  then  went  to  the  Tribune.  This  room  is 
so  delightfully  small  you  can  traverse  it  in  fifteen  paces, 
yet  it  contains  a  world  of  art.  I  again  sought  out  my 
favourite  arm  chair  which  stands  under  the  statue  of  the 
'Slave  whetting  his  knife'  (L'Arrotino),  and  taking  pos- 
session of  it  I  enjoyed  myself  for  a  couple  of  hours ;  for 
here  at  one  glance  I  had  the  'Madonna  del  Cardellino,' 
Pope  Julius  II.,  a  female  portrait  by  Raphael,  and  above 
it  a  lovely  Holy  Family  by  Perugino ;  and  so  close  to  me 
that  I  could  have  touched  it  with  my  hand  the  Venus 
de'  Medici;  beyond,  that  of  Titian.  .  .  .  The  space  be- 
tween is  occupied  by  other  pictures  of  Raphael's,  a  por- 
trait by  Titian,  a  Domenichino,  etc.,  etc.,  all  these  within 
the  circumference  of  a  small  semi-circle  no  larger  than 
one  of  your  own  rooms.  This  is  a  spot  where  a  man 
feels  his  own  insignificance  and  may  well  learn  to  be 
humble."  The  Tribune  is  a  slippery  place  for  people  like 
Mendelssohn  to  study  humility  in.  They  generally  take 
two  steps  away  from  it  for  one  they  take  towards  it.  I 
wonder  how  many  chalks  Mendelssohn  gave  himself  for 
having  sat  two  hours  on  that  chair.  I  wonder  how  often 
he  looked  at  his  watch  to  see  if  his  two  hours  were  up. 
I  wonder  how  often  he  told  himself  that  he  was  quite  as 
big  a  gun,  if  the  truth  were  known,  as  any  of  the  men 
whose  works  he  saw  before  him,  how  often  he  wondered 
whether  any  of  the  visitors  were  recognizing  him  and 
admiring  him  for  sitting  such  a  long  time  in  the  same 
chair,  and  how  often  he  was  vexed  at  seeing  them  pass 
him  by  and  take  no  notice  of  him.  But  perhaps  if  the 
truth  were  known  his  two  hours  was  not  quite  two  hours. 

Returning  to  Mr.  Pontifex,  whether  he  liked  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  and  Italian  art 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  19 

or  no,  he  brought  back  some  copies  by  Italian  artists, 
which  I  have  no  doubt  he  satisfied  himself  would  bear 
the  strictest  examination  with  the  originals.  Two  of 
these  copies  fell  to  Theobald's  share  on  the  division  of 
his  father's  furniture,  and  I  have  often  seen  them  at 
Battersby  on  my  visits  to  Theobald  and  his  wife.  The 
one  was  a  Madonna  by  Sassoferrato  with  a  blue  hood 
over  her  head  which  threw  it  half  into  shadow.  The 
other  was  a  Magdalen  by  Carlo  Dolci  with  a  very  fine 
head  of  hair  and  a  marble  vase  in  her  hands.  When  I 
was  a  young  man  I  used  to  think  these  pictures  were 
beautiful,  but  with  each  successive  visit  to  Battersby  I 
got  to  dislike  them  more  and  more  and  to  see  "George 
Pontifex"  written  all  over  both  of  them.  In  the  end  I 
ventured  after  a  tentative  fashion  to  blow  on  them  a 
little,  but  Theobald  and  his  wife  were  up  in  arms  at 
once.  They  did  not  like  their  father  and  father-in-law, 
but  there  could  be  no  question  about  his  power  and  gen- 
eral ability,  nor  about  his  having  been  a  man  of  consum- 
mate taste  both  in  literature  and  art — indeed  the  diary 
he  kept  during  his  foreign  tour  was  enough  to  prove 
this.  With  one  more  short  extract  I  will  leave  this  diary 
and  proceed  with  my  story.  During  his  stay  in  Florence 
Mr.  Pontifex  wrote :  "I.  have  just  seen  the  Grand  Duke 
and  his  family  pass  by  in  two  carriages  and  six,  but  little 
more  notice  is  taken  of  them  than  if  I,  who  am  utterly 
unknown  here,  were  to  pass  by."  I  don't  think  that  he 
half  believed  in  his  being  utterly  unknown  in  Florence  or 
anywhere  else? 

CHAPTER  V 

FORTUNE,  we  are  told,  is  a  blind  and  fickle  foster-mother, 
who  showers  her  gifts  at  random  upon  her  nurslings. 
But  we  do  her  a  grave  injustice  if  we  believe  such  an 
accusation.  Trace  a  man's  career  from  his  cradle  to  his 
grave  and  mark  how  Fortune  has  treated  him.  You  will 


20  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

find  that  when  he  is  once  dead  she  can  for  the  most  pait 
be  vindicated  from  the  charge  of  any  but  very  superficial 
fickleness.  Her  blindness  is  the  merest  fable;  she  can 
espy  her  favourites  long  before  they  are  born.  We  are 
as  days  and  have  had  our  parents  for  our  yesterdays, 
but  through  all  the  fair  weather  of  a  clear  parental  sky 
the  eye  of  Fortune  can  discern  the  coming  storm,  and 
she  laughs  as  she  places  her  favourites  it  may  be  in  a 
London  alley  or  those  whom  she  is  resolved  to  ruin  in 
kings'  palaces.  Seldom  does  she  relent  towards  those 
whom  she  has  suckled  unkindly  and  seldom  does  she 
completely  fail  a  favoured  nursling. 

Was  George  Pontifex  one  of  Fortune's  favoured  nurs- 
lings or  not  ?  On  the  whole  I  should  say  that  he  was  not, 
for  he  did  not  consider  himself  so;  he  was  too  religious 
to  consider  Fortune  a  deity  at  all ;  he  took  whatever  she 
gave  and  never  thanked  her,  being  firmly  convinced  that 
whatever  he  got  to  his  own  advantage  was  of  his  own 
getting.  And  so  it  was,  after  Fortune  had  made  him 
able  to  get  it. 

"Nos  te,  nos  facimus,  Fortuna,  deam,"  exclaimed  the 
poet.  "It  is  we  who  make  thee,  Fortune,  a  goddess"; 
and  so  it  is,  after  Fortune  has  made  us  able  to  make  her. 
The  poet  says  nothing  as  to  the  making  of  the  "nos." 
Perhaps  some  men  are  independent  of  antecedents  and 
surroundings  and  have  an  initial  force  within  themselves 
which  is  in  no  way  due  to  causation ;  but  this  is  supposed 
to  be  a  difficult  question  and  it  may  be  as  well  to  avoid  it. 
Let  it  suffice  that  George  Pontifex  did  not  consider  him- 
self fortunate,  and  he  who  •  does  not  consider  himself 
fortunate  is  unfortunate. 

True,  he  was  rich,  universally  respected  and  of  an  ex- 
cellent natural  constitution.  If  he  had  eaten  and  drunk 
less  he  would  never  have  known  a  day's  indisposition. 
Perhaps  his  main  strength  lay  in  the  fact  that  though  his 
capacity  was  a  little  above  the  average,  it  was  not  too 
much  so.  It  is  on  this  rock  that  so  many  clever  people 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  21 

split.  The  successful  man  will  see  just  so  much  more 
than  his  neighbours  as  they  will  be  able  to  see  too  when 
it  is  shown  them,  but  not  enough  to  puzzle  them.  Itis_f  ar/\  ^  _ 
safer  jto-knowtoo  littlethan  joo  jjmch.f  People  will  corn  / 
demn  the  one,  though  they  will  resent  being  called  upon  to 
exert  themselves  to  follow  the  other.  The  best  example 
of  Mr.  Pontifex's  good  sense  in  matters  connected  with 
his  business  which  I  can  think  of  at  this  moment  is  the 
revolution  which  he  effected  in  the  style  of  advertising 
works  published  by  the  firm.  When  he  first  became  a 
partner  one  of  the  firm's  advertisements  ran  thus : — 

"Books  proper  to  be  given  away  at  this  Season. — 
"The  Pious  Country  Parishioner,  being  directions  how 
a  Christian  may  manage  every  day  in  the  course  of  his 
whole  life  with  safety  and  success ;  how  to  spend  the 
Sabbath  Day;  what  books  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ought 
to  be  read  first ;  the  whole  method  of  education ;  collects 
for  the  most  important  virtues  that  adorn  the  soul :  a  dis- 
course on  the  Lord's  Supper;  rules  to  set  the  soul  right 
in  sickness ;  so  that  in  this  treatise  are  contained  all  the 
rules  requisite  for  salvation.  The  8th  edition  with  addi- 
tions. Price  lod. 

"  **  *  An  allowance  will  be  made  to  those  who  give 
them  away." 

Before  he  had  been  many  years  a  partner  the  adver- 
tisement stood  as  follows  : — 

"The  Pious  Country  Parishioner.  A  complete  manual 
of  Christian  Devotion.  Price  lod. 

"A  reduction  will  be  made  to  purchasers  for  gratuitous 
distribution." 

What  a  stride  is  made  in  the  foregoing  towards  the 
modern  standard,  and  what  intelligence  is  involved  in  the 
perception  of  the  unseemliness  of  the  old  style,  when 
others  did  not  perceive  it! 

Where  then  was  the  weak  place  in  George  Pontifex's 


22  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

armour  ?    I  suppose  in  the  fact  that  he  had  risen  too  rap- 
idly.   It  would  almost  seem  as  if  a  transmitted  education 
of  some  generations  is  necessary  for  the  due  enjoyment  of 
great  wealth.    Adversity,  if  a  man  is  set  down  to  it  by 
degrees,  is  more  supportable  with  equanimity  by  most 
people  than  any  great  prosperity  arrived  at  in  a  single 
lifetime.     Nevertheless  a  certain  kind  of  good  fortune', 
generally  attends  self-made  men  to  the  last.     It  is  their  I 
children  of  the  first,  or  first  and  second,  generation  who  \ 
are  in  greater  danger,  for  the  race  can  no  more  repeat  its 
most  successful  performances  suddenly  and  without  its 
ebbings  and  flo wings  of  success  than  the  individual  can 
do  so,  and  the  more  brilliant  the  success  in  any  one  gen- 
eration, the  greater  as  a  general  rule  the  subsequent  ex-| 
haustion  until  time    has    been    allowed    for    recovery.: 
Hence  it  often  happens  that  the  grandson  of  a  success- 
ful man  will  be  more  successful  than  the  son — the  spirit 
that  actuated  the  grandfather  having  lain  fallow  in  the 
son  and  being  refreshed  by  repose  so  as  to  be  ready  for 
fresh  exertion  in  the  grandson.    A  very  successful  man, 
moreover,  has  something  of  the  hybrid  in  him;  he  is  a 
new  animal,  arising  from  the  coming  together  of  many 
unfamiliar  elements  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  repro-y 
duction  of  abnormal  growths,  whether  animal  or  vege-\ 
table,  is  irregular  and  not  to  be  depended  upon,  even 
when  they  are  not  absolutely  sterile. 

And  certainly  Mr.  Pontifex's  success  was  exceedingly 
rapid.  Only  a  few  years  after  he  had  become  a  partner 
his  uncle  and  aunt  both  died  within  a  few  months  of  one 
another.  It  was  then  found  that  they  had  made  him  their 
heir.  He  was  thus  not  only  sole  partner  in  the  business, 
but  found  himself  with  a  fortune  of  some  £30,000  into 
the  bargain,  and  this  was  a  large  sum  in  those  days. 
Money  came  pouring  in  upon  him,  and  the  faster  it  came 
the  fonder  he  became  of  it,  though,  as  he  frequently  said, 
he  valued  it  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  only  as  a  means  of 
providing  for  his  dear  children. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  23 

Yet  when  a  man  is  very  fond  of  his  money  it  is  not 
easy  for  him  at  all  times  to  be  very  fond  of  his  children 
also.  The  two  are  like  God  and  Mammon.  Lord  Ma- 
caulay  has  a  passage  in  which  he  contrasts  the  pleasures 
which  a  man  may  derive  from  books  with  the  incon- 
veniences to  which  he  may  be  put  by  his  acquaintances. 
"Plato,"  he  says,  "is  never  sullen.  Cervantes  is  never 
petulant.  Demosthenes  never  comes  unseasonably. 
Dante  never  stays  too  long.  No  difference  of  political 
opinion  can  alienate  Cicero.  No  heresy  can  excite  the 
horror  of  Bossuet."  I  dare  say  I  might  differ  from 
Lord  Macaulay  in  my  estimate  of  some  of  the  writers 
he  has  named,  but  there  can  be  no  disputing  his  main 
proposition,  namely,  that  we  need  have  no  more  trouble 
from  any  of  them  than  we  have  a  mind  to,  whereas 
our  friends  are  not  always  so  easily  disposed  of.  George 
Pontifex  felt  this  as  regards  his  children  and  his  money. 
His  money  was  never  naughty;  his  money  never  made 
noise  or  litter,  and  did  not  spill  things  on  the  tablecloth 
at  meal  times,  or  leave  the  door  open  when  it  went  out. 
His  dividends  did  not  quarrel  among  themselves,  nor  was 
he  under  any  uneasiness  lest  his  mortgages  should  become 
extravagant  on  reaching  manhood  and  run  him  up  debts 
which  sooner  or  later  he  should  have  to  pay.  There 
were  tendencies  in  John  which  made  him  very  uneasy, 
and  Theobald,  his  second  son,  was  idle  and  at  times  far 
from  truthful.  His  children  might,  perhaps,  have  an- 
swered, had  they  known  what  was  in  their  father's  mind, 
that  he  did  not  knock  his  money  about  as  he  not  infre- 
quently knocked  his  children.  He  never  dealt  hastily  or 
pettishly  with  his  money,  and  that  was  perhaps  why  he 
and  it  got  on  so  well  together. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century  the  relations  between  parents  and 
children  were  still  far  from  satisfactory.  The  violent 
type  of  father,  as  described  by  Fielding,  Richardson, 
Smollett  and  Sheridan,  is  now  hardly  more  likely  to  find 


24  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

a  place  in  literature  than  the  original  advertisement  of 
Messrs.  Fairlie  &  Pontifex's  "Pious  Country  Parish- 
ioner," but  the  type  was  much  too  persistent  not  to  have 
been  drawn  from  nature  closely.  The  parents  in  Miss 
Austen's  novels  are  less  like  savage  wild  beasts  than 
those  of  her  predecessors,  but  she  evidently  looks  upon 
them  with  suspicion,  and  an  uneasy  feeling  that  le  pere 
de  famille  est  capable  de  tout  makes  itself  sufficiently 
apparent  throughout  the  greater  part  of  her  writings.  In 
the  Elizabethan  time  the  relations  between  parents  and 
children  seem  on  the  whole  to  have  been  more  kindly. 
The  fathers  and  the  sons  are  for  the  most  part  friends 
in  Shakespeare,  nor  does  the  evil  appear  to  have  reached 
its  full  abomination  till  a  long  course  of  Puritanism  had 
familiarised  men's  minds  with  Jewish  ideals  as  those 
which  we  should  endeavour  to  reproduce  in  our  every- 
day life.  What  precedents  did  not  Abraham,  Jephthah 
and  Jonadab  the  son  of  Rechab  offer?  How  easy  was  it 
to  quote  and  follow  them  in  an  age  when  few  reasonable 
men  or  women  doubted  that  every  syllable  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  taken  down  verbatim  from  the  mouth  of 
God.  Moreover,  Puritanism  restricted  natural  pleasures ; 
it  substituted  the  Jeremiad  for  the  Paean,  and  it  forgot 
that  the  poor  abuses  of  all  times  want  countenance. 

Mr.  Pontifex  may  have  been  a  little  sterner  with  his 
children  than  some  of  his  neighbours,  but  not  much.  He 
thrashed  his  boys  two  or  three  times  a  week  and  some 
weeks  a  good  deal  oftener,  but  in  those  days  fathers  were 
always  thrashing  their  boys.  It  is  easy  to  have  juster 
views  when  everyone  else  has  them,  but  fortunately  or 
unfortunately  results  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  moral  guilt  or  blamelessness  of  him  who  brings  them 
about ;  they  depend  solely  upon  the  thing  done,  whatever 
it  may  happen  to  be.  The  moral  guilt  or  blamelessness 
in  like  manner  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  result ;  it  turns 
upon  the  question  whether  a  sufficient  number  of  reason- 
able people  placed  as  the  actor  was  placed  would  have 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  25 

done  as  the  actor  has  done.  At  that  time  it  was  uni- 
versally admitted  that  to  spare  the  rod  was  to  spoil  the 
child,  and  St.  Paul  had  placed  disobedience  to  parents 
in  very  ugly  company.  If  his  children  did  anything 
which  Mr.  Pontifex  disliked  they  were  clearly  disobedi- 
ent to  their  father.  In  this  case  there  was  obviously  only 
one  course  for  a  sensible  man  to  take.  It  consisted  in 
checking  the  first  signs  of  self-will  while  his  children 
were  too  young  to  offer  serious  resistance.  If  their  wills 
were  "well  broken"  in  childhood,  to  use  an  expression 
then  much  in  vogue,  they  would  acquire  habits  of  obedi- 
ence which  they  would  not  venture  to  break  through  till 
they  were  over  twenty-one  years  old.  Then  they  might 
please  themselves;  he  should  know  how  to  protect  him- 
self ;  till  then  he  and  his  money  were  more  at  their  mercy 
than  he  liked. 

How  little  do  we  know  our  thoughts — our  reflex  ac- 
tions indeed,  yes;  but  our  reflections!  Man,  forsooth, 
prides  himself  on  his  consciousness !  We  boast  that  we 
differ  from  the  winds  and  waves  and  falling  stones  and 
plants,  which  grow  they  know  not  why,  and  from  the 
wandering  creatures  which  go  up  and  down  after  their 
prey,  as  we  are  pleased  to  say,  without  the  help  of  reason. 
We  know  so  well  what  we  are  doing  ourselves  and  why 
we  do  it,  do  we  not?  I  fancy  that  there  is  some  truth 
in  the  view  which  is  being  put  forward  nowadays,  that  it 
is  our  less  conscious  thoughts  and  our  less  conscious 
actions  which  mainly  mould  our  lives  and  the  lives  of 
those  who  spring  from  us. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MR.  PONTIFEX  was  not  the  man  to  trouble  himself  much 
about  his  motives.  People  were  not  so  introspective  then 
as  we  are  now;  they  lived  more  according  to  a  rule  of 
thumb.  Dr.  Arnold  had  not  yet  sown  that  crop  of  earnest 


26  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

thinkers  which  we  are  now  harvesting,  and  men  did  not 
see  why  they  should  not  have  their  own  way  if  no  evil 
consequences  to  themselves  seemed  likely  to  follow  upon 
their  doing  so.  Then  as  now,  however,  they  sometimes 
let  themselves  in  for  more  evil  consequences  than  they 
had  bargained  for. 

Like  other  rich  men  at  the  beginning  of  this  century 
he  ate  and  drank  a  good  deal  more  than  was  enough  to 
keep  him  in  health.  Even  his  excellent  constitution  was 
not  proof  against  a  prolonged  course  of  overfeeding  and 
what  we  should  now  consider  overdrinking.  His  liver 
would  not  infrequently  get  out  of  order,  and  he  would 
come  down  to  breakfast  looking  yellow  about  the  eyes. 
Then  the  young  people  knew  that  they  had  better  look 
out.  It  is  not  as  a  general  rule  the  eating  of  sour  grapes 
that  causes  the  children's  teeth  to  be  set  on  edge.  Well- 
to-do  parents  seldom  eat  many  sour  grapes;  the  danger 
to  the  children  lies  in  the  parents  eating  too  many  sweet 
ones. 

I  grant  that  at  first  sight  it  seems  very  unjust,  that  the 
parents  should  have  the  fun  and  the  children  be  pun- 
ished for  it,  but  young  people  should  remember  that  for 
many  years  they  were  part  and  parcel  of  their  parents 
and  therefore  had  a  good  deal  of  the  fun  in  the  person 
of  their  parents.  If  they  have  forgotten  the  fun  now, 
that  is  no  more  than  people  do  who  have  a  headache  af- 
ter having  been  tipsy  overnight.  The  man  with  a  head- 
ache does  not  pretend  to  be  a  different  person  from  the 
man  who  got  drunk,  and  claim  that  it  is  his  self  of  the 
preceding  night  and  not  his  self  of  this  morning  who 
should  be  punished;  no  more  should  offspring  complain 
of  the  headache  which  it  has  earned  when  in  the  person 
of  its  parents,  for  the  continuation  of  identity,  though 
not  so  immediately  apparent,  is  just  as  real  in  one  case 
as  in  the  other.  What  is  really  hard  is  when  the  parents 
have  the  fun  after  the  children  have  been  born,  and  the 
children  are  punished  for  this. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  27 

On  these,  his  black  days,  he  would  take  very  gloomy 
views  of  things  and  say  to  himself  that  in  spite  of  all  his 
goodness  to  them  his  children  did  not  love  him.  But  who 
can  love  any  man  whose  liver  is  out  of  order?  How 
base,  he  would  exclaim  to  himself,  was  such  ingratitude! 
How  especially  hard  upon  himself,  who  had  been  such  a 
model  son,  and  always  honoured  and  obeyed  his  parents 
though  they  had  not  spent  one  hundredth  part  of  the 
money  upon  him  which  he  had  lavished  upon  his  own 
children.  "It  is  always  the  same  story,"  he  would  say 
to  himself,  "the  more  young  people  have  the  more  they 
want,  and  the  less  thanks  one  gets ;  I  have  made  a  great 
mistake;  I  have  been  far  too  lenient  with  my  children; 
never  mind,  I  have  done  my  duty  by  them,  and  more ;  if 
they  fail  in  theirs  to  me  it  is  a  matter  between  God  and 
them.  I,  at  any  rate,  am  guiltless.  Why,  I  might  have 
married  again  and  become  the  father  of  a  second  and 
perhaps  more  affectionate  family,  etc.,  etc."  He  pitied 
himself  for  the  expensive  education  which  he  was  giving 
his  children;  he  did  not  see  that  the  education  cost  the 
children  far  more  than  it  cost  him,  inasmuch  as  it  cost 
them  the  power  of  earning  their  living  easily  rather  than 
helped  them  towards  it,  and  ensured  their  being  at  the 
mercy  of  their  father  for  years  after  they  had  come  to 
an  age  when  they  should  be  independent.  A  public  school 
education  cuts  off  a  boy's  retreat;  he  can  no  longer  be- 
come a  labourer  or  a  mechanic,  and  these  are  the  only/ 
people  whose  tenure  of  independence  is  not  precarious— [ 
with  the  exception  of  course  of  those  who  are  born  in- 
heritors of  money  or  who  are  placed  young  in  some  safe 
and  deep  groove.  Mr.  Pontif  ex  saw  nothing  of  this ; 
all  he  saw  was  that  he  was  spending  much  more  money 
upon  his  children  than  the  law  would  have  compelled  him 
to  do,  and  what  more  could  you  have?  Might  he  not 
have  apprenticed  both  his  sons  to  greengrocers?  Might 
he  not  even  yet  do  so  to-morrow  morning  if  he  were  so 
minded?  The  possibility  of  this  course  being  adopted 


28  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

was  a  favourite  topic  with  him  when  he  was  out  of 
temper;  true,  he  never  did  apprentice  either  of  his  sons 
to  greengrocers,  but  his  boys  comparing  notes  together 
had  sometimes  come  to  the  conclusion  that  they  wished 
he  would. 

At  other  times  when  not  quite  well  he  would  have  them 
in  for  the  fun  of  shaking  his  will  at  them.  He  would  in 
his  imagination  cut  them  all  out  one  after  another  and 
leave  his  money  to  found  almshouses,  till  at  last  he  was 
obliged  to  put  them  back,  so  that  he  might  have  the 
pleasure  of  cutting  them  out  again  the  next  time  he  was 
in  a  passion. 

Of  course  if  young  people  allow  their  conduct  to  be 
in  any  way  influenced  by  regard  to  the  wills  of  living 
persons,  they  are  doing  very  wrong  and  must  expect 
to  be  sufferers  in  the  end ;  nevertheless,  the  powers 
of  will-dangling  and  will-shaking  are  so  liable  to  abuse 
and  are  continually  made  so  great  an  engine  of  tor- 
ture that  I  would  pass  a  law,  if  I  could,  to  incapaci- 
tate any  man  from  making  a  will  for  three  months 
from  the  date  of  each  offence  in  either  of  the  above 
respects  and  let  the  bench  of  magistrates  or  judge, 
before  whom  he  has  been  convicted,  dispose  of  his 
property  as  they  shall  think  right  and  reasonable  if  he 
dies  during  the  time  that  his  will-making  power  is  sus- 
pended. 

Mr.  Pontifex  would  have  the  boys  into  the  dining- 
room.  "My  dear  John,  my  dear  Theobald,"  he  would  say, 
"look  at  me.  I  began  life  with  nothing  but  the  clothes 
with  which  my  father  and  mother  sent  me  up  to  London. 
My  father  gave  me  ten  shillings  and  my  mother  five  for 
pocket  money  and  I  thought  them  munificent.  I  never 
asked  my  father  for  a  shilling  in  the  whole  course  of 
my  life,  nor  took  aught  from  him  beyond  the  small  sum 
he  used  to  allow  me  monthly  till  I  was  in  receipt  of  a 
salary.  I  made  my  own  way  and  I  shall  expect  my  sons 
to  do  the  same.  Pray  don't  take  it  into  your  heads  that 


29 

I  am  going  to  wear  my  life  out  making  money  that  my 
sons  may  spend  it  for  me.  If  you  want  money  you  must 
make  it  for  yourselves  as  I  did,  for  I  give  you  my  word 
I  will  not  leave  a  penny  to  either  of  you  unless  you 
show  that  you  deserve  it.  Young  people  seem  nowadays 
to  expect  all  kinds  of  luxuries  and  indulgences  which 
were  never  heard  of  when  I  was  a  boy.  Why,  my  father 
was  a  common  carpenter,  and  here  you  are  both  of  you 
at  public  schools,  costing  me  ever  so  many  hundreds  a 
year,  while  I  at  your  age  was  plodding  away  behind  a 
desk  in  my  Uncle  Fairlie's  counting  house.  What  should 
I  not  have  done  if  I  had  had  one-half  of  your  advan- 
tages ?  You  should  become  dukes  or  found  new  empires 
in  undiscovered  countries,  and  even  then  I  doubt  whether 
you  would  have  done  proportionately  so  much  as  I  have 
done.  No,  no,  I  shall  see  you  through  school  and  college 
and  then,  if  you  please,  you  will  make  your  own  way  in 
the  world." 

In  this  manner  he  would  work  himself  up  into  such 
a  state  of  virtuous  indignation  that  he  would  sometimes 
thrash  the  boys  then  and  there  upon  some  pretext  in- 
vented at  the  moment. 

And  yet,  as  children  went,  the  young  Pontifexes  were 
fortunate;  there  would  be  ten  families  of  young  people 
worse  off  for  one  better ;  they  ate  and  drank  good  whole- 
some food,  slept  in  comfortable  beds,  had  the  best  doc- 
tors to  attend  them  when  they  were  ill  and  the  best  edu- 
cation that  could  be  had  for  money.  The  want  of  fresh 
air  does  not  seem  much  to  affect  the  happiness  of  chil- 
dren in  a  London  alley :  the  greater  part  of  them  sing 
and  play  as  though  they  were  on  a  moor  in  Scotland. 
So  the  absence  of  a  genial  mental  atmosphere  is  not  com- 
monly recognised  by  children  who  have  never  known  it. 
Young  people  have  a  marvellous  faculty  of  either  dying 
or  adapting  themselves  to  circumstances.  Even  if  they 
are  unhappy — very  unhappy — it  is  astonishing  how  easily 
they  can  be  prevented  from  finding  it  out,  or  at  any  rate 


30  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

from  attributing  it  to  any  other  cause  than  their  own 
sinfulness. 

To  parents  who  wish  to  lead  a  quiet  life  I  would  say : 
Tell  your  children  that  they  are  very  naughty — much 
naughtier  than  most  children.  Point  to  the  young  people 
of  some  acquaintances  as  models  of  perfection  and  im- 
press your  own  children  with  a  deep  sense  of  their  own 
inferiority.  You  carry  so  many  more  guns  than  they 
do  that  they  cannot  fight  you.  This  is  called  moral  in- 
fluence, and  it  will  enable  you  to  bounce  them  as  much 
as  you  please.  They  think  you  know  and  they  will  not 
have  yet  caught  you  lying  often  enough  to  suspect  that 
you  are  not  the  unworldly  and  scrupulously  truthful  per- 
son which  you  represent  yourself  to  be ;  nor  yet  will  they 
know  how  great  a  coward  you  are,  nor  how  soon  you 
will  run  away,  if  they  fight  you  with  persistency  and 
judgement.  You  keep  the  dice  and  throw  them  both  for 
your  children  and  yourself.  Load  them  then,  for  you 
can  easily  manage  to  stop  your  children  from  examining 
them.  Tell  them  how  singularly  indulgent  you  are;  in- 
sist on  the  incalculable  benefit  you  conferred  upon  them, 
firstly  in  bringing  them  into  the  world  at  all,  but  more 
particularly  in  bringing  them  into  it  as  your  own  chil- 
dren rather  than  anyone  else's.  Say  that  you  have  their 
highest  interests  at  stake  whenever  you  are  out  of  tem- 
per and  wish  to  make  yourself  unpleasant  by  way  of 
balm  to  your  soul.  Harp  much  upon  these  highest  in- 
terests. Feed  them  spiritually  upon  such  brimstone  and 
treacle  as  the  late  Bishop  of  Winchester's  Sunday  stories. 
You  hold  all  the  trump  cards,  or  if  you  do  not  you  can 
filch  them ;  if  you  play  them  with  anything  like  judgement 
you  will  find  yourselves  heads  of  happy,  united,  God- 
fearing families,  even  as  did  my  old  friend  Mr.  Pontifex. 
True,  your  children  will  probably  find  out  all  about  it 
some  day,  but  not  until  too  late  to  be  of  much  service 
to  them  or  inconvenience  to  yourself. 

Some  satirists  have  complained  of  life,  inasmuch  as  all 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  31 

the  pleasures  belong  to  the  fore  part  of  it  and  we  must 
see  them  dwindle  till  we  are  left,  it  may  be,  with  the 
miseries  of  a  decrepit  old  age. 

To  me  it  seems  that  youth  is  like  spring,  an  overpraised 
season — delightful  if  it  happen  to  be  a  favoured  one,  but 
in  practice  very  rarely  favoured  and  more  remarkable,  as 
a  general  rule,  for  biting  east  winds  than  genial  breezes. 
Autumn  is  the  mellower  season,  and  what  we  lose  in 
flowers  we  more  than  gain  in  fruits.  Fontenelle  at  the 
age  of  ninety,  being  asked  what  was  the  happiest  time  of 
his  life,  said  he  did  not  know  that  he  had  ever  been  much 
happier  than  he  then  was,  but  that  perhaps  his  best  years 
had  been  those  when  he  was  between  fifty-five  and  seven- 
ty-five, and  Dr.  Johnson  placed  the  pleasures  of  old  age 
far  higher  than  those  of  youth.  True,  in  old  age  we  live  j 
under  the  shadow  of  Death,  which,  like  a  sword  of 
Damocles,  may  descend  at  any  moment,  but  we  have  so> 
long  found  life  to  be  an  affair  of  being  rather  frightened 
than  hurt  that  we  have  become  like  the  people  who  live 
under  Vesuvius,  and  chance  it  without  much  misgiving. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  FEW  words  may  suffice  for  the  greater  number  of  the 
young  people  to  whom  I  have  been  alluding  in  the  fore- 
going chapter.  Eliza  and  Maria,  the  two  elder  girls,  were 
neither  exactly  pretty  nor  exactly  plain,  and  were  in  all 
respects  model  young  ladies,  but  Alethea  was  exceedingly 
pretty  and  of  a  lively,  affectionate  disposition,  which  was 
in  sharp  contrast  with  those  of  her  brothers  and  sisters. 
There  was  a  trace  of  her  grandfather,  not  only  in  her 
face,  but  in  her  love  of  fun,  of  which  her  father  had 
none,  though  not  without  a  certain  boisterous  and  rather 
coarse  quasi-humour  which  passed  for  wit  with  many.1 

John  grew  up  to  be  a  good-looking,  gentlemanly  fel- 
low, with  features  a  trifle  too  regular  and  finely  chiselled. 


32  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

He  dressed  himself  so  nicely,  had  such  good  address,  and 
stuck  so  steadily  to  his  books  that  he  became  a  favourite 
with  his  masters ;  he  had,  however,  an  instinct  for  diplo- 
macy, and  was  less  popular  with  the  boys.  His  father, 
in  spite  of  the  lectures  he  would  at  times  read  him,  was 
in  a  way  proud  of  him  as  he  grew  older ;  he  saw  in  him, 
moreover,  one  who  would  probably  develop  into  a  good 
man  of  business,  and  in  whose  hands  the  prospects  of 
his  house  would  not  be  likely  to  decline.  John  knew  how 
to  humour  his  father,  and  was  at  a  comparatively  early 
age  admitted  to  as  much  of  his  confidence  as  it  was  in 
his  nature  tq  bestow  on  anyone. 

His  brother  Theobald  was  no  match  for  him,  knew  it, 
and  accepted  his  fate.  He  was  not  so  good-looking  as 
his  brother,  nor  was  his  address  so  good;  as  a  child  he 
had  been  violently  passionate;  now,  however,  he  was  re- 
served and  shy,  and,  I  should  say,  indolent  in  mind  and 
body.  He  was  less  tidy  than  John,  less  welt  able  to 
assert  himself,  and  less  skilful  in  humouring  the  caprices 
of  his  father.  I  do  not  think  he  could  have  loved  any- 
one heartily,  but  there  was  no  one  in  his  family  circle 
who  did  not  repress,  rather  than  invite  his  affection,  with 
the  exception  of  his  sister  Alethea,  and  she  was  too  quick 
and  lively  for  his  somewhat  morose  temper.  He  was 
always  the  scapegoat,  and  I  have  sometimes  thought  he 
had  two  fathers  to  contend  against — his  father  and  his 
brother  John;  a  third  and  fourth  also  might  almost  be 
added  in  his  sisters  Eliza  and  Maria.  Perhaps  if  he  had 
felt  his  bondage  very  acutely  he  would  not  have  put  up 
with  it,  but  he  was  constitutionally  timid,  and  the  strong 
hand  of  his  father  knitted  him  into  the  closest  outward 
harmony  with  his  brother  and  sisters. 

The  boys  were  of  use  to  their  father  in  one  respect.  I 
mean  that  he  played  them  off  against  each  other.  He 
kept  them  but  poorly  supplied  with  pocket  money,  and  to 
Theobald  would  urge  that  the  claims  of  his  elder  brother 
were  naturally  paramount,  while  he  insisted  to  John  upon 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  33 

the  fact  that  he  had  a  numerous  family,  and  would  affirm 
solemnly  that  his  expenses  were  so  heavy  that  at  his 
death  there  would  be  very  little  to  divide.  He  did  not 
care  whether  they  compared  notes  or  no,  provided  they 
did  not  do  so  in  his  presence.  Theobald  did  not  com- 
plain even  behind  his  father's  back.  I  knew  him  as  inti- 
mately as  anyone  was  likely  to  know  him  as  a  child,  at 
school,  and  again  at  Cambridge,  but  he  very  rarely  men- 
tioned his  father's  name  even  while  his  father  was  alive, 
and  never  once  in  my  hearing  afterwards.  At  school  he 
was  not  actively  disliked,  as  his  brother  was,  but  he  was 
too  dull  and  deficient  in  animal  spirits  to  be  popular. 

Before  he  was  well  out  of  his  frocks  it  was  settled  that 
he  was  to  be  a  clergyman.  It  was  seemly  that  Mr.  Ponti- 
fex,  the  well-known  publisher  of  religious  books,  should 
devote  at  least  one  of  his  sons  to  the  Church;  this  might 
tend  to  bring  business,  or  at  any  rate  to  keep  it  in  the 
firm;  besides,  Mr.  Pontifex  had  more  or  less  interest  with 
bishops  and  Church  dignitaries  and  might  hope  that  some 
preferment  would  be  offered  to  his  son  through  his  in- 
fluence. The  boy's  future  destiny  was  kept  well  before 
his  eyes  from  his  earliest  childhood  and  was  treated  as 
a  matter  which  he  had  already  virtually  settled  by  his 
acquiescence.  Nevertheless  a  certain  show  of  freedom 
was  allowed  him.  Mr.  Pontifex  would  say  it  was  only 
right  to  give  a  boy  his  option,  and  was  much  too  equi- 
table to  grudge  his  son  whatever  benefit  he  could  derive 
from  this.  He  had  the  greatest  horror,  he  would  ex- 
claim, of  driving  any  young  man  into  a  profession  which 
he  did  not  like.  Far  be  it  from  him  to  put  pressure  upon 
a  son  of  his  as  regards  any  profession  and  much  less 
when  so  sacred  a  calling  as  the  ministry  was  concerned. 
He  would  talk  in  this  way  when  there  were  visitors  in 
the  house  and  when  his  son  was  in  the  room.  He  spoke 
so  wisely  and  so  well  that  his  listening  guests  considered 
him  a  paragon  of  right-mindedness.  He  spoke,  too,  with 
such  emphasis  and  his  rosy  gills  and  bald  head  looked  so 


34  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

benevolent  that  it  was  difficult  not  to  be  carried  away  by 
his  discourse.  I  believe  two  or  three  heads  of  families 
in  the  neighbourhood  gave  their  sons  absolute  liberty 
of  choice  in  the  matter  of  their  professions — and  am  not 
sure  that  they  had  not  afterwards  considerable  cause  to 
regret  having  done  so.  The  visitors,  seeing  Theobald 
look  shy  and  wholly  unmoved  by  the  exhibition  of  so 
much  consideration  for  his  wishes,  would  remark  to 
themselves  that  the  boy  seemed  hardly  likely  to  be  equal 
to  his  father  and  would  set  him  down  as  an  unenthusias- 
tic  youth,  who  ought  to  have  more  life  in  him  and  be 
more  sensible  of  his  advantages  than  he  appeared  to  be. 
No  one  believed  in  the  righteousness  of  the  whole 
transaction  more  firmly  than  the  boy  himself ;  a  sense  of 
being  ill  at  ease  kept  him  silent,  but  it  was  too  profound 
and  too  much  without  break  for  him  to  become  fully  alive 
to  it,  and  come  to  an  understanding  with  himself.  He 
feared  the  dark  scowl  which  would  come  over  his  father's 
face  upon  the  slightest  opposition.  His  father's  violent 
threats,  or  coarse  sneers,  would  not  have  been  taken 
au  serieux  by  a  stronger  boy,  but  Theobald  was  not  a 
strong  boy,  and  rightly  or  wrongly,  gave  his  father 
credit  for  being  quite  ready  to  carry  his  threats  into 
execution.  Opposition  had  never  got  him  anything  he 
wanted  yet,  nor  indeed  had  yielding,  for  the  matter  of 
that,  unless  he  happened  to  want  exactly  what  his  father 
wanted  for  him.  If  he  had  ever  entertained  thoughts  of 
resistance,  he  had  none  now,  and  the  power  to  oppose 
was  so  completely  lost  for  want  of  exercise  that  hardly 
did  the  wish  remain;  there  was  nothing  left  save  dull 
acquiescence  as  of  an  ass  crouched  between  two  bur- 
dens. He  may  have  had  an  ill-defined  sense  of  ideals 
that  were  not  his  actuals;  he  might  occasionally  dream 
of  himself  as  a  soldier  or  a  sailor  far  away  in  foreign 
lands,  or  even  as  a  farmer's  boy  upon  the  wolds,  but 
there  was  not  enough  in  him  for  there  to  be  any  chance 
of  his  turning  his  dreams  into  realities,  and  he  drifted 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  35 

on  with  his  stream,  which  was  a  slow,  and,  I  am  afraid, 
a  muddy  one. 

I  think  the  Church  Catechism  has  a  good  deal  to  do 
with  the  unhappy  relations  which  commonly  even  now 
exist  between  parents  and  children.  That  work  was 
written  too  exclusively  from  the  parental  point  of  view ; 
the  person  who  composed  it  did  not  get  a  few  children  to 
come  in  and  help  him ;  he  was  clearly  not  young  himself, 
nor  should  I  say  it  was  the  work  of  one  who  liked  chil- 
dren— in  spite  of  the  words  "my  good  child"  which,  if  I 
remember  rightly,  are  once  put  into  the  mouth  of  the 
catechist  and,  after  all,  carry  a  harsh  sound  with  them. 
The  general  impression  it  leaves  upon  the  mind  of  the 
young  is  that  their  wickedness  at  birth  was  but  very 
imperfectly  wiped  out  at  baptism,  and  that  the  mere  fact 
of  being  young  at  all  has  something  with  it  that  savours 
more  or  less  distinctly  of  the  nature  of  sin. 

If  a  new  edition  of  the  work  is  ever  required,  I  should 
like  to  introduce  a  few  words  insisting  on  the  duty  of 
seeking  all  reasonable  pleasure  and  avoiding  all  pain  that 
can  be  honourably  avoided.  I  should  like  to  see  children 
taught  that  they  should  not  say  they  like  things  which 
they  do  not  like,  merely  because  certain  other  people 
say  they  like  them,  and  how  foolish  it  is  to  say  they 
believe  this  or  that  when  they  understand  nothing  about 
it.  If  it  be  urged  that  these  additions  would  make  the 
Catechism  too  long,  I  would  curtail  the  remarks  upon  our 
duty  towards  our  neighbour  and  upon  the  sacraments. 
In  the  place  of  the  paragraph  beginning  "I  desire  my 
Lord  God  our  Heavenly  Father"  I  would — but  perhaps 
I  had  better  return  to  Theobald,  and  leave  the  recasting 
of  the  Catechism  to  abler  hands. 


36  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MR.  PONTIFEX  had  set  his  heart  on  his  son's  becoming 
a  fellow  of  a  college  before  he  became  a  clergyman. 
This  would  provide  for  him  at  once  and  would  ensure 
his  getting  a  living  if  none  of  his  father's  ecclesiastical 
friends  gave  him  one.  The  boy  had  done  just  well 
enough  at  school  to  render  this  possible,  so  he  was  sent 
to  one  of  the  smaller  colleges  at  Cambridge  and  was  at 
once  set  to  read  with  the  best  private  tutors  that  could 
be  found.  A  system  of  examination  had  been  adopted 
a  year  or  so  before  Theobald  took  his  degree  which 
had  improved  his  chances  of  a  fellowship,  for  whatever 
ability  he  had  was  classical  rather  than  mathematical, 
and  this  system  gave  more  encouragement  to  classical 
studies  than  had  been  given  hitherto. 

Theobald  had  the  sense  to  see  that  he  had  a  chance  of 
independence  if  he  worked  hard,  and  he  liked  the  notion 
of  becoming  a  fellow.  He  therefore  applied  himself, 
and  in  the  end  took  a  degree  which  made  his  getting  a 
fellowship  in  all  probability  a  mere  question  of  time. 
For  a  while  Mr.  Pontifex,  senior,  was  really  pleased, 
and  told  his  son  he  would  present  him  with  the  works 
of  any  standard  writer  whom  he  might  select.  The 
young  man  chose  the  works  of  Bacon,  and  Bacon  ac- 
cordingly made  his  appearance  in  ten  nicely  bound  vol- 
umes. A  little  inspection,  however,  showed  that  the 
copy  was  a  second  hand  one. 

Now  that  he  had  taken  his  degree,  the  next  thing  to 
look  forward  to  was  ordination — about  which  Theobald 
had  thought  little  hitherto  beyond  acquiescing  in  it  as 
something  that  would  come  as  a  matter  of  course  some 
day.  Now,  however,  it  had  actually  come  and  was  as- 
serting itself  as  a  thing  which  should  be  only  a  few 
months  off,  and  this  rather  frightened  him,  inasmuch  as 
there  would  be  no  way  out  of  it  when  he  was  once  in  it. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  37 

He  did  not  like  the  near  view  of  ordination  as  well  as 
the  distant  one,  and  even  made  some  feeble  efforts  jto 
escape,  as  may  be  perceived  by  the  following  corre- 
spondence which  his  son  Ernest  found  among  his 
father's  papers  written  on  gilt-edged  paper,  in  faded  ink, 
and  tied  neatly  round  with  a  piece  of  tape,  but  without 
any  note  or  comment.  I  have  altered  nothing.  The 
letters  are  as  follows : — 

"My  DEAR  FATHER, — I  do  not  like  opening  up  a  ques- 
tion which  has  been  considered  settled,  but  as  the  time 
approaches  I  begin  to  be  very  doubtful  how  far  I  am 
fitted  to  be  a  clergyman.  Not,  I  am  thankful  to  say, 
that  I  have  the  faintest  doubts  about  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  I  could  subscribe  cordially  to  every  one  of  the 
thirty-nine  articles  which  do  indeed  appear  to  me  to  be 
the  ne  plus  ultra  of  human  wisdom,  and  Paley,  too, 
leaves  no  loop-hole  for  an  opponent ;  but  I  am  sure  I 
should  be  running  counter  to  your  wishes  if  I  were  to 
conceal  from  you  that  I  do  not  feel  the  inward  call  to 
be  a  minister  of  the  gospel  that  I  shall  have  to  say  I 
have  felt  when  the  Bishop  ordains  me.  I  try  to  get  this 
feeling,  I  pray  for  it  earnestly,  and  sometimes  half  think 
that  I  have  got  it,  but  in  a  little  time  it  wears  off,  and 
though  I  have  no  absolute  repugnance  to  being  a  clergy- 
man and  trust  that  if  I  am  one  I  shall  endeavour  to  live 
to  the  Glory  of  God  and  to  advance  His  interests  upon 
earth,  yet  I  feel  that  something  more  than  this  is  wanted 
before  I  am  fully  justified  in  going  into  the  Church.  I 
am  aware  that  I  have  been  a  great  expense  to  you  in 
spite  of  my  scholarships,  but  you  have  ever  taught  me 
that  I  should  obey  my  conscience,  and  my  conscience 
tells  me  I  should  do  wrong  if  I  became  a  clergyman. 
God  may  yet  give  me  the  spirit  for  which  I  assure  you 
I  have  been  and  am  continually  praying,  but  He  may  not, 
and  in  that  case  would  it  not  be  better  for  me  to  try  and 
look  out  for  something  else?  I  know  that  neither  you 


38  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

nor  John  wish  me  to  go  into  your  business,  nor  do  I 
understand  anything  about  money  matters,  but  is  there 
nothing  else  that  I  can  do?  I  do  not  like  to  ask  you  to 
maintain  me  while  I  go  in  for  medicine  or  the  bar;  but 
when  I  get  my  fellowship,  which  should  not  be  long, 
first,  I  will  endeavour  to  cost  you  nothing  further,  and 
I  might  make  a  little  money  by  writing  or  taking  pupils. 
I  trust  you  will  not  think  this  letter  improper;  nothing 
is  further  from  my  wish  than  to  cause  you  any  uneasi- 
ness. I  hope  you  will  make  allowance  for  my  present 
feelings  which,  indeed,  spring  from  nothing  but  from 
that  respect  for  my  conscience  which  no  one  has  so  often 
instilled  into  me  as  yourself.  Pray  let  me  have  a  few 
lines  shortly.  I  hope  your  cold  is  better.  With  love  to 
Eliza  and  Maria,  I  am,  your  affectionate  son, 

"THEOBALD  PONTIFEX." 

"DEAR  THEOBALD, — I  can  enter  into  your  feelings  and 
have  no  wish  to  quarrel  with  your  expression  of  them. 
It  is  quite  right  and  natural  that  you  should  feel  as  you 
do  except  as  regards  one  passage,  the  impropriety  of 
which  you  will  yourself  doubtless  feel  upon  reflection, 
and  to  which  I  will  not  further  allude  than  to  say  that 
it  has  wounded  me.  You  should  not  have  said  'in  spite 
of  my  scholarships.'  It  was  only  proper  that  if  you 
could  do  anything  to  assist  me  in  bearing  the  heavy  bur- 
den of  your  education,  the  money  should  be,  as  it  was, 
made  over  to  myself.  Every  line  in  your  letter  con- 
vinces me  that  you  are  under  the  influence  of  a  morbid 
sensitiveness  which  is  one  of  the  devil's  favourite  devices 
for  luring  people  to  their  destruction.  I  have,  as  you 
say,  been  at  great  expense  with  your  education.  Noth- 
ing has  been  spared  by  me  to  give  you  the  advantages, 
which,  as  an  English  gentleman,  I  was  anxious  to  afford 
my  son,  but  I  am  not  prepared  to  see  that  expense 
thrown  away  and  to  have  to  begin  again  from  the  be- 
ginning, merely  because  you  have  taken  some  foolish 


39 

scruples  into  your  head,  which  you  should  resist  as  no 
less  unjust  to  yourself  than  to  me. 

"Don't  give  way  to  that  restless  desire  for  change 
which  is  the  bane  of  so  many  persons  of  both  sexes  at 
the  present  day. 

"Of  course  you  needn't  be  ordained :  nobody  will  com- 
pel you;  you  are  perfectly  free;  you  are  twenty-three 
years  of  age,  and  should  know  your  own  mind ;  but  why 
not  have  known  it  sooner,  instead  of  never  so  much  as 
breathing  a  hint  of  opposition  until  I  have  had  all  the 
expense  of  sending  you  to  the  University,  which  I  should 
never  have  done  unless  I  had  believed  you  to  have  made 
up  your  mind  about  taking  orders?  I  have  letters  from 
you  in  which  you  express  the  most  perfect  willingness 
to  be  ordained,  and  your  brother  and  sisters  will  bear 
me  out  in  saying  that  no  pressure  of  any  sort  has  been 
put  upon  you.  You  mistake  your  own  mind,  and  are 
suffering  from  a  nervous  timidity  which  may  be  very 
natural  but  may  not  the  less  be  pregnant  with  serious 
consequences  to  yourself.  I  am  not  at  all  well,  and  the 
anxiety  occasioned  by  your  letter  is  naturally  preying 
upon  me.  May  God  guide  you  to  a  better  judgement.-  — 
Your  affectionate  father,  G.  PONTIFEX." 

On  the  receipt  of  this  letter  Theobald  plucked  up  his 
spirits.  "My  father,"  he  said  to  himself,  "tells  me  I 
need  not  be  ordained  if  I  do  not  like.  I  do  not  like,  and 
therefore  I  will  not  be  ordained.  But  what  was  the 
meaning  of  the  words  'pregnant  with  serious  conse- 
quences to  yourself?  Did  there  lurk  a  threat  under 
these  words — though  it  was  impossible  to  lay  hold  of  it 
or  of  them?  Were  they  not  intended  to  produce  all  the 
effect  of  a  threat  without  being  actually  threatening?" 

Theobald  knew  his  father  well  enough  to  be  little 
likely  to  misapprehend  his  meaning,  but  having  ventured 
so  far  on  the  path  of  opposition,  and  being  really  anxious 
to  get  out  of  being  ordained  if  he  could,  he  determined 


40  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

to  venture  farther.    He  accordingly  wrote  the  following : 

"Mv  DEAR  FATHER, — You  tell  me — and  I  heartily 
thank  you — that  "no  one  will  compel  me  to  be  ordained. 
I  knew  you  would  not  press  ordination  upon  me  if  my 
conscience  was  seriously  opposed  to  it ;  I  have  therefore 
resolved  on  giving  up  the  idea,  and  believe  that  if  you 
will  continue  to  allow  me  what  you  do  at  present,  until 
I  get  my  fellowship,  which  should  not  be  long,  I  will 
then  cease  putting  you  to  further  expense.  I  will  make 
up  my  mind  as  soon  as  possible  what  profession  I  will 
adopt,  and  will  let  you  know  at  once. — Your  affectionate 
son,  THEOBALD  PONTIFEX." 

The  remaining  letter,  written  by  return  of  post,  must 
now  be  given.  It  has  the  merit  of  brevity. 

"DEAR  THEOBALD, — I  have  received  yours.  I  am  at  a 
loss  to  conceive  its  motive,  but  am  very  clear  as  to  its 
effect.  You  shall  not  receive  a  single  sixpence  from  me 
till  you  come  to  your  senses.  Should  you  persist  in 
your  folly  and  wickedness,  I  am  happy  to  remember  that 
I  have  yet  other  children  whose  conduct  I  can  depend 
upon  to  be  a  source  of  credit  and  happiness  to  me. — 
Your  affectionate  but  troubled  father, 

"G.  PONTIFEX." 

I  do  not  know  the  immediate  sequel  to  the  foregoing 
correspondence,  but  it  all  came  perfectly  right  in  the 
end.  Either  Theobald's  heart  failed  him,  or  he  inter- 
preted the  outward  shove  which  his  father  gave  him, 
as  the  inward  call  for  which  I  have  no  doubt  he  prayed 
with  great  earnestness — for  he  was  a  firm  believer  in 
the  efficacy  of  prayer.  And  so  am  I  under  certain  cir- 
cumstances. Tennyson  has  said  that  more  things  are 
wrought  by  prayer  than  this  world  dreams  of,  but  he 
has  wisely  refrained  from  saying  whether  they  are  good 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  41 

things  or  bad  things.  It  might  perhaps  be  as  well  if  the 
world  were  to  dream  of,  or  even  become  wide  awake 
to,  some  of  the  things  that  are  being  wrought  by  prayer. 
But  the  question  is  avowedly  difficult.  In  the  end  Theo- 
bald got  his  fellowship  by  a  stroke  of  luck  very  soon 
after  taking  his  degree,  and  was  ordained  in  the  autumn' 
of  the  same  year,  1825. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MR.  ALLABY  was  rector  of  Crampsford,  a  village  a  few 
miles  from  Cambridge.  He,  too,  had  taken  a  good  de- 
gree, had  got  a  fellowship,  and  in  the  course  of  time 
had  accepted  a  college  living  of  about  £400  a  year  and  a 
house.  His  private  income  did  not  exceed  £200  a  year. 
On  resigning  his  fellowship  he  married  a  woman  a  good 
deal  younger  than  himself  who  bore  him  eleven  children, 
nine  of  whom — two  sons  and  seven  daughters — were 
living.  The  two  eldest  daughters  had  married  fairly 
well,  but  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  now  writing  there 
were  still  five  unmarried,  of  ages  varying  between  thirty 
and  twenty-two — and  the  sons  were  neither  of  them  yet 
off  their  father's  hands.  It  was  plain  that  if  anything 
were  to  happen  to  Mr.  Allaby  the  family  would  be  left 
poorly  off,  and  this  made  both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Allaby  as 
unhappy  as  it  ought  to  have  made  them. 

Reader,  did  you  ever  have  an  income  at  best  none  too 
large,  which  died  with  you  all  except  £200  a  year?  Did 
you  ever  at  the  same  time  have  two  sons  who  must  be 
started  in  life  somehow,  and  five  daughters  still  unmar- 
ried for  whom  you  would  only  be  too  thankful  to  find 
husbands — if  you  knew  how  to  find  them?  If  morality 
is  that  which,  on  the  whole,  brings  a  man  peace  in  his 
declining  years — if,  that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  an  utter  swin- 
dle, can  you  under  these  circumstances  flatter  yourself 
that  you  have  led  a  moral  life  ? 


42  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

And  this,  even  though  your  wife  has  been  so  good  a 
woman  that  you  have  not  grown  tired  of  her,  and  has 
not  fallen  into  such  ill-health  as  lowers  your  own  health 
in  sympathy;  ,and  though  your  family  has  grown  up 
vigorous,  amiable,  and  blessed  with  common  sense.  I 
know  many  old  men  and  women  who  are  reputed  moral, 
but  who  are  living  with  partners  whom  they  have  long 
ceased  to  love,  or  who  have  ugly,  disagreeable  maiden 
daughters  for  whom  they  have  never  been  able  to  find 
husbands — daughters  whom  they  loathe  and  by  whom 
they  are  loathed  in  secret,  or  sons  whose  folly  or  ex- 
travagance is  a  perpetual  wear  and  worry  to  them.  Is  it 
moral  for  a  man  to  have  brought  such  things  upon  him- 
self? Someone  should  do  for  morals  what  that  old 
Pecksniff  Bacon  has  obtained  the  credit  of  having  done 
for  science. 

But  to  return  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Allaby.  Mrs.  Allaby 
talked  about  having  married  two  of  her  daughters  as 
though  it  had  been  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world.  She 
talked  in  this  way  because  she  heard  other  mothers  do 
so,  but  in  her  heart  of  hearts  she  did  not  know  how  she 
had  done  it,  nor  indeed,  if  it  had  been  her  doing  at  all. 
First  there  had  been  a  young  man  in  connection  with 
whom  she  had  tried  to  practise  certain  manoeuvres  which 
she  had  rehearsed  in  imagination  over  and  over  again, 
but  which  she  found  impossible  to  apply  in  practice. 
Then  there  had  been  weeks  of  a  zvurra  wurra  of  hopes 
and  fears  and  little  stratagems  which  as  often  as  not 
proved  injudicious,  and  then  somehow  or  other  in  the 
end,  there  lay  the  young  man  bound  and  with  an  arrow 
through  his  heart  at  her  daughter's  feet.  It  seemed  to 
her  to  be  all  a  fluke  which  she  could  have  little  or  no 
hope  of  repeating.  She  had  indeed  repeated  it  once, 
and  might  perhaps  with  good  luck  repeat  it  yet  once 
again — but  five  times  over!  It  was  awful:  why  she 
would  rather  have  three  confinements  than  go  through 
the  wear  and  tear  of  marrying  a  single  daughter. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  43 

Nevertheless  it  had  got  to  be  done,  and  poor  Mrs. 
Allaby  never  looked  at  a  young  man  without  an  eye  to 
his  being  a  future  son-in-law.  Papas  and  mammas 
sometimes  ask  young  men  whether  their  intentions  are 
honourable  towards  their  daughters.  I  think  young  men 
might  occasionally  ask  papas  and  mammas  whether 
their  intentions  are  honourable  before  they  accept  invi- 
tations to  houses  where  there  are  still  unmarried  daugh- 
ters. 

"I  can't  afford  a  curate,  my  dear,"  said  Mr.  Allaby 
to  his  wife  when  the  pair  were  discussing  what  was  next 
to  be  done.  "It  will  be  better  to  get  some  young  man  to 
come  and  help  me  for  a  time  upon  a  Sunday.  A  guinea 
a  Sunday  will  do  this,  and  we  can  chop  and  change  till 
we  get  someone  who  suits."  So  it  was  settled  that  Mr. 
Allaby's  health  was  not  so  strong  as  it  had  been,  and 
that  he  stood  in  need  of  help  in  the  performance  of  his 
Sunday  duty. 

Mrs.  Allaby  had  a  great  friend — a  certain  Mrs.  Cowey, 
wife  of  the  celebrated  Professor  Cowey.  She  was  what 
was  called  a  truly  spiritually  minded  woman,  a  trifle 
portly,  with  an  incipient  beard,  and  an  extensive  connec- 
tion among  undergraduates,  more  especially  among  those 
who  were  inclined  to  take  part  in  the  great  evangelical 
movement  which  was  then  at  its  height.  She  gave  even- 
ing parties  once  a  fortnight  at  which  prayer  was  part  of 
the  entertainment.  She  was  not  only  spiritually  minded, 
but,  as  enthusiastic  Mrs.  Allaby  used  to  exclaim,  she  was 
a  thorough  woman  of  the  world  at  the  same  time  and  had 
such  a  fund  of  strong  masculine  good  sense.  She  too 
had  daughters,  but,  as  she  used  to  say  to  Mrs.  Allaby, 
she  had  been  less  fortunate  than  Mrs.  Allaby  herself, 
for  one  by  one  they  had  married  and  left  her,  so  that  her 
old  age  would  have  been  desolate  indeed  if  her  Profes- 
sor had  not  been  spared  to  her. 

Mrs.  Cowey,  of  course,  knew  the  run  of  all  the  bache- 
lor clergy  in  the  University,  and  was  the  very  person 


44  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

to  assist  Mrs.  Allaby  in  finding  an  eligible  assistant  for 
her  husband,  so  this  last  named  lady  drove  over  one 
morning  in  the  November  of  1825,  by  arrangement,  to 
take  an  early  dinner  with  Mrs.  Cowey  and  spend  the 
afternoon.  After  dinner  the  two  ladies  retired  to- 
gether, and  the  business  of  the  day  began.  How  they 
fenced,  how  they  saw  through  one  another,  with  what 
loyalty  they  pretended  not  to  see  through  one  another, 
with  what  gentle  dalliance  they  prolonged  the  conversa- 
tion discussing  the  spiritual  fitness  of  this  or  that  dea- 
con, and  the  other  pros  and  cons  connected  with  him 
after  his  spiritual  fitness  had  been  disposed  of,  all  this 
must  be  left  to  the  imagination  of  the  reader.  Mrs. 
Cowey  had  been  so  accustomed  to  scheming  on  her  own 
account  that  she  would  scheme  for  anyone  rather  than 
not  scheme  at  all.  Many  mothers  turned  to  her  in  their 
hour  of  need  and,  provided  they  were  spiritually  minded, 
Mrs.  Cowey  never  failed  to  do  her  best  for  them;  if  the 
marriage  of  a  young  Bachelor  of  Arts  was  not  made  in 
Heaven,  it  was  probably  made,  or  at  any  rate  attempted, 
in  Mrs.  Cowey's  drawing-room.  On  the  present  occa- 
sion all  the  deacons  of  the  University  in  whom  there 
lurked  any  spark  of  promise  were  exhaustively  dis- 
cussed, and  the  upshot  was  that  our  friend  Theobald  was 
declared  by  Mrs.  Cowey  to  be  about  the  best  thing  she 
could  do  that  afternoon. 

"I  don't  know  that  he's  a  particularly  fascinating 
young  man,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Cowey,  "and  he's  only 
a  second  son,  but  then  he's  got  his  fellowship,  and  even 
the  second  son  of  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Pontifex,  the  pub- 
lisher, should  have  something  very  comfortable." 

"Why,  yes,  my  dear,"  rejoined  Mrs.  Allaby  compla- 
cently, "that's  what  one  rather  feels." 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  45 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  interview,  like  all  other  good  things,  had  to  come  to 
an  end;  the  days  were  short,  and  Mrs.  Allaby  had  a 
six  miles'  drive  to  Crampsford.  When  she  was  muf- 
fled up  and  had  taken  her  seat,  Mr.  Allaby's  factotum, 
James,  could  perceive  no  change  in  her  appearance,  and 
little  knew  what  a  series  of  delighted  visions  he  was 
driving  home  along  with  his  mistress. 

Professor  Cowey  had  published  works  through  Theo- 
bald's father,  and  Theobald  had  on  this  account  been 
taken  in  tow  by  Mrs.  Cowey  from  the  beginning  of  his 
University  career.  She  had  had  an  eye  upon  him  for 
some  time  past,  and  almost  as  much  felt  it  her  duty  to 
get  him  off  her  list  of  young  men  for  whom  wives  had 
to  be  provided,  as  poor  Mrs.  Allaby  did  to  try  and  get 
a  husband  for  one  of  her  daughters.  She  now  wrote 
and  asked  him  to  come  and  see  her,  in  terms  that 
awakened  his  curiosity.  When  he  came  she  broached 
the  subject  of  Mr.  Allaby's  failing  health,  and  after  the 
smoothing  away  of  such  difficulties  as  were  only  Mrs. 
Cowey 's  due,  considering  the  interest  she  had  taken,  it 
was  allowed  to  come  to  pass  that  Theobald  should  go  to 
Crampsford  for  six  successive  Sundays  and  take  the 
half  of  Mr.  Allaby's  duty  at  half  a  guinea  a  Sunday,  for 
Mrs.  Cowey  cut  down  the  usual  stipend  mercilessly,  and 
Theobald  was  not  strong  enough  to  resist. 

Ignorant  of  the  plots  which  were  being  prepared  for 
his  peace  of  mind  and  with  no  idea  beyond  that  of  earn- 
ing his  three  guineas,  and  perhaps  of  astonishing  the  in- 
habitants of  Crampsford  by  his  academic  learning,  Theo- 
bald walked  over  to  the  Rectory  one  Sunday  morning 
early  in  December — a  few  weeks  only  after  he  had  been 
ordained.  He  had  taken  a  great  deal  of  pains  with  his 
sermon,  which  was  on  the  subject  of  geology — then 
coming  to  the  fore  as  a  theological  bugbear.  He  showed 


46  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

that  so  far  as  geology  was  worth  anything  at  all — and 
he  was  too  liberal  entirely  to  pooh-pooh  it — it  confirmed 
the  absolutely  historical  character  of  the  Mosaic  account 
of  the  Creation  as  given  in  Genesis.  Any  phenomena 
which  at  first  sight  appeared  to  make  against  this  view 
were  only  partial  phenomena  and  broke  down  upon  in- 
vestigation. Nothing  could  be  in  more  excellent  taste, 
and  when  Theobald  adjourned  to  the  Rectory,  where  he 
was  to  dine  between  the  services,  Mr.  Allaby  compli- 
mented him  warmly  upon  his  debut,  while  the  ladies  of 
the  family  could  hardly  find  words  with  which  to  express 
their  admiration. 

Theobald  knew  nothing  about  women.  The  only 
women  he  had  been  thrown  in  contact  with  were  his 
sisters,  two  of  whom  were  always  correcting  him,  and  a 
few  school  friends  whom  these  had  got  their  father  to 
ask  to  Elmhurst.  These  young  ladies  had  either  been 
so  shy  that  they  and  Theobald  had  never  amalgamated, 
or  they  had  been  supposed  to  be  clever  and  had  said 
smart  things  to  him.  He  did  not  say  smart  things  him- 
self and  did  not  want  other  people  to  say  them.  Besides, 
they  talked  about  music — and  he  hated  music — or  pic- 
tures— and  he  hated  pictures — or  books — and  except  the 
classics  he  hated  books.  And  then  sometimes  he  was 
wanted  to  dance  with  them,  and  he  did  not  know  how  to 
dance,  and  did  not  want  to  know. 

At  Mrs.  Cowey's  parties  again  he  had  seen  some 
young  ladies  and  had  been  introduced  to  them.  He  had 
tried  to  make  himself  agreeable,  but  was  always  left 
with  the  impression  that  he  had  not  been  successful. 
The  young  ladies  of  Mrs.  Cowey's  set  were  by  no  means 
the  most  attractive  that  might  have  been  found  in  the 
University,  and  Theobald  may  be  excused  for  not  losing 
his  heart  to  the  greater  number  of  them,  while  if  for  a 
minute  or  two  he  was  thrown  in  with  one  of  the  prettier 
and  more  agreeable  girls  he  was  almost  immediately  cut 
out  by  someone  less  bashful  than  himself,  and  sneaked 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  47 

off,  feeling,  as  far  as  the  fair  sex  was  concerned,  like  the 
impotent  man  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda. 

What  a  really  nice  girl  might  have  done  with  him  I 
cannot  tell,  but  fate  had  thrown  none  such  in  his  way 
except  his  youngest  sister  Alethea,  whom  he  might  per- 
haps have  liked  if  she  had  not  been  his  sister.  The  re- 
sult of  his  experience  was  that  women  had  never  done 
him  any  good  and  he  was  not  accustomed  to  associate 
them  with  any  pleasure ;  if  there  was  a  part  of  Hamlet 
in  connection  with  them  it  had  been  so  completely  cut 
out  in  the  edition  of  the  play  in  which  he  was  required  to 
act  that  he  had  come  to  disbelieve  in  its  existence.  As 
for  kissing,  he  had  never  kissed  a  woman  in  his  life 
except  his  sister — and  my  own  sisters  when  we  were  all 
small  children  together.  Over  and  above  these  kisses, 
he  had  until  quite  lately  been  required  to  imprint  a  sol- 
emn, flabby  kiss  night  and  morning  upon  his  father's 
cheek,  and  this,  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  was  the  extent 
of  Theobald's  knowledge  in  the  matter  of  kissing,  at 
the  time  of  which  I  am  now  writing.  The  result  of  the 
foregoing  was  that  he  had  come  to  dislike  women,  as 
mysterious  beings  whose  ways  were  not  as  his  ways,  nor 
their  thoughts  as  his  thoughts. 

With  these  antecedents,  Theobald  naturally  felt  rather 
bashful  on  finding  himself  the  admired  of  five  strange 
young  ladies.  I  remember  when  I  was  a  boy  myself  I 
was  once  asked  to  take  tea  at  a  girls'  school  where  one 
of  my  sisters  was  boarding.  I  was  then  about  twelve 
years  old.  Everything  went  off  well  during  tea-time, 
for  the  Lady  Principal  of  the  establishment  was  present. 
But  there  came  a  time  when  she  went  away  and  I  was 
left  alone  with  the  girls.  The  moment  the  mistress's 
back  was  turned  the  head  girl,  who  was  about  my  own 
age,  came  up,  pointed  her  finger  at  me,  made  a  face  and 
said  solemnly,  "A  na-a-sty  bo-o-y!"  All  the  girls  fol- 
lowed her  in  rotation  making  the  same  gesture  and  the 
same  reproach  upon  my  being  a  boy.  It  gave  me  a  great 


48  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

scare.  I  believe  I  cried,  and  I  know  it  was  a  long  time 
before  I  could  again  face  a  girl  without  a  strong  desire 
to  run  away. 

Theobald  felt  at  first  much  as  I  had  myself  done  at 
the  girls'  school,  but  the  Miss  Allabys  did  not  tell  him 
he  was  a  nasty  bo-o-oy.  Their  papa  and  mamma  were 
so  cordial  and  they  themselves  lifted  him  so  deftly  over 
conversational  stiles  that  before  dinner  was  over  Theo- 
bald thought  the  family  to  be  a  really  very  charming  one, 
and  felt  as  though  he  were  being  appreciated  in  a  way 
to  which  he  had  not  hitherto  been  accustomed. 

With  dinner  his  shyness  wore  off.  He  was  by  no 
means  plain,  his  academic  prestige  was  very  fair.  There 
was  nothing  about  him  to  lay  hold  of  as  unconventional 
or  ridiculous;  the  impression  he  created  upon  the  young 
ladies  was  quite  as  favourable  as  that  which  they  had 
created  upon  himself;  for  they  knew  not  much  more 
about  men  than  he  about  women. 

As  soon  as  he  was  gone,  the  harmony  of  the  establish- 
ment was  broken  by  a  storm  which  arose  upon  the  ques- 
tion which  of  them  it  should  be  who  should  become  Mrs. 
Pontifex.  "My  dears,"  said  their  father,  when  he  saw 
that  they  did  not  seem  likely  to  settle  the  matter  among 
themselves,  "wait  till  to-morrow,  and  then  play  at  cards 
for  him."  Having  said  which  he  retired  to  his  study, 
where  he  took  a  nightly  glass  of  whisky  and  a  pipe  of 
tobacco. 

CHAPTER  XI 

THE  next  morning  saw  Theobald  in  his  rooms  coaching 
a  pupil,  and  the  Miss  Allabys  in  the  eldest  Miss  Allaby's 
bedroom  playing  at  cards,  with  Theobald  for  the  stakes. 
The  winner  was  Christina,  the  second  unmarried 
daughter,  then  just  twenty-seven  years  old  and  therefore 
four  years  older  than  Theobald.  The  younger  sisters 
complained  that  it  was  throwing  a  husband  away  to  let 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  49 

Christina  try  and  catch  him,  for  she  was  so  much  older 
that  she  had  no  chance;  but  Christina  showed  fight  in  a 
way  not  usual  with  her,  for  she  was  by  nature  yielding 
and  good  tempered.  Her  mother  thought  it  better  to 
back  her  up,  so  the  two  dangerous  ones  were  packed  off 
then  and  there  on  visits  to  friends  some  way  off,  and 
those  alone  allowed  to  remain  at  home  whose  loyalty 
could  be  depended  upon.  The  brothers  did  not  even 
suspect  what  was  going  on  and  believed  their  father's 
getting  assistance  was  because  he  really  wanted  it. 

The  sisters  who  remained  at  home  kept  their  words 
and  gave  Christina  all  the  help  they  could,  for  over  and 
above  their  sense  of  fair  play  they  reflected  that  the 
sooner  Theobald  was  landed,  the  sooner  another  deacon 
might  be  sent  for  who  might  be  won  by  themselves.  So 
quickly  was  all  managed  that  the  two  unreliable  sisters 
were  actually  out  of  the  house  before  Theobald's  next 
visit — which  was  on  the  Sunday  following  his  first. 

This  time  Theobald  felt  quite  at  home  in  the  house 
of  his  new  friends — for  so  Mrs.  Allaby  insisted  that  he 
should  call  them.  She  took,  she  said,  such  a  motherly 
interest  in  young  men,  especially  in  clergymen.  Theo- 
bald believed  every  word  she  said,  as  he  had  believed  his 
father  and  all  his  elders  from  his  youth  up.  Christina 
sat  next  him  at  dinner  and  played  her  cards  no  less  judi- 
ciously than  she  had  played  them  in  her  sister's  bed- 
room. She  smiled  (and  her  smile  was  one  of  her  strong 
points)  whenever  he  spoke  to  her;  she  went  through  all 
her  little  artlessnesses  and  set  forth  all  her  little  wares 
in  what  she  believed  to  be  their  most  taking  aspect.  Who 
can  blame  her?  Theobald  was  not  the  ideal  she  had 
dreamed  of  when  reading  Byron  upstairs  with  her  sis- 
ters, but  he  was  an  actual  within  the  bounds  of  possibil- 
ity, and  after  all  not  a  bad  actual  as  actuals  went.  What 
else  could  she  do  ?  Run  away  ?  She  dared  not.  Marry 
beneath  her  and  be  considered  a  disgrace  to  her  family? 
She  dared  not.  Remain  at  home  and  become  an  old 


50  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

maid  and  be  laughed  at?  Not  if  she  could  help  it.  She 
did  the  only  thing  that  could  reasonably  be  expected. 
She  was  drowning;  Theobald  might  be  only  a  straw, 
but  she  could  catch  at  him,  and  catch  at  him  she  accord- 
ingly did. 

If  the  course  of  true  love  never  runs  smooth,  the 
course  of  true  match-making  sometimes  does  so.  The 
only  ground  for  complaint  in  the  present  case  was  that 
it  was  rather  slow.  Theobald  fell  into  the  part  assigned 
to  him  more  easily  than  Mrs.  Cowey  and  Mrs.  Allaby 
had  dared  to  hope.  He  was  softened  by  Christina's 
winning  manners :  he  admired  the  high  moral  tone  of 
everything  she  said;  her  sweetness  towards  her  sisters 
and  her  father  and  mother,  her  readiness  to  undertake 
any  small  burden  which  no  one  else  seemed  willing  to 
undertake,  her  sprightly  manners,  all  were  fascinating 
to  one  who,  though  unused  to  woman's  society,  was 
still  a  human  being.  He  was  flattered  by  her  unobtru- 
sive but  obviously  sincere  admiration  for  himself;  she 
seemed  to  see  him  in  a  more  favourable  light,  and  to 
understand  him  better  than  anyone  outside  of  this  charm- 
ing family  had  ever  done.  Instead  of  snubbing  him  as  his 
father,  brother  and  sisters  did,  she  drew  him  out,  lis- 
tened attentively  to  all  he  chose  to  say,  and  evidently 
wanted  him  to  say  still  more.  He  told  a  college  friend 
that  he  knew  he  was  in  love  now;  he  really  was,  for  he 
liked  Miss  Allaby's  society  much  better  than  that  of  his 
sisters. 

Over  and  above  the  recommendations  already  enu- 
merated, she  had  another  in  the  possession  of  what  was 
supposed  to  be  a  very  beautiful  contralto  voice.  Her 
voice  was  certainly  contralto,  for  she  could  not  reach 
higher  than  D  in  the  treble;  its  only  defect  was  that 
it  did  not  go  correspondingly  low  in  the  bass :  in  those 
days,  however,  a  contralto  voice  was  understood  to  in- 
clude even  a  soprano  if  the  soprano  could  not  reach 
soprano  notes,  and  it  was  not  necessary  that  it  should 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  51 

have  the   quality   which   we  now   assign  to   contralto. 
What  her  voice  wanted  in  range  and  power  was  made 
up  in  the  feeling  with  which  she  sang.     She  had  trans- 
posed "Angels  ever  bright  and  fair"  into  a  lower  key, 
so  as  to  make  it  suit  her  voice,  thus  proving,  as  her 
mamma  said,  that  she  had  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
laws  of  harmony;  not  only  did  she  do  this,  but  at  every 
pause  she  added   an  embellishment  of  arpeggios  from 
one  end  to  the  other  of  the  keyboard,  on  a  principle 
which  her  governess  had  taught  her ;  she  thus  added  life 
and  interest  to  an  air  which  everyone — so  she  said — 
must  feel  to  be  rather  heavy  in  the  form  in  which  Han- 
del left  it.    As  for  her  governess,  she  indeed  had  been  a 
rarely  accomplished  musician:    she  was  a  pupil  of  the 
famous  Dr.  Clarke  of  Cambridge,  and  used  to  play  the 
overture  to  Atalanta,  arranged  by  Mazzinghi.      Neverthe- 
less, it  was  some  time  before  Theobald  could  bring  his 
courage  to  the  sticking  point  of  actually  proposing.    He 
made  it  quite  clear  that  he  believed  himself  to  be  much 
smitten,  but  month  after  month  went  by,  during  which 
there  was  still  so  much  hope  in  Theobald  that  Mr.  Al- 
laby  dared  not  discover  that  he  was  able  to  do  his  duty 
for  himself,  and  was  getting  impatient  at  the  number  of 
half-guineas  he  was  disbursing — and  yet  there  was  no 
proposal.     Christina's  mother  assured  him  that  she  was 
the  best  daughter  in  the  whole  world,  and  would  be  a 
priceless  treasure  to  the  man  who  married  her.     Theo- 
bald echoed  Mrs.  Allaby's  sentiments  with  warmth,  but 
still,  though  he  visited  the  Rectory  two  or  three  times  a 
week,  besides  coming  over  on  Sundays — he  did  not  pro- 
pose.   "She  is  heart-whole  yet,  dear  Mr.  Pontifex,"  said 
Mrs.  Allaby,  one  day,  "at  least  I  believe  she  is.     It  is 
not  for  want  of  admirers — oh !  no — she  has  had  her  full 
share  of  these,  but  she  is  too,  too  difficult  to  please.     I 
think,  however,  she  would  fall  before  a  great  and  good 
man."    And  she  looked  hard  at  Theobald,  who  blushed ; 
but  the  days  went  by  and  still  he  did  not  propose. 


52  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Another  time  Theobald  actually  took  Mrs.  Cowey  into 
his  confidence,  and  the  reader  may  guess  what  account 
of  Christina  he  got  from  her.  Mrs.  Cowey  tried  the 
jealousy  manoeuvre  and  hinted  at  a  possible  rival.  Theo- 
bald was,  or  pretended  to  be,  very  much  alarmed;  a 
little  rudimentary  pang  of  jealousy  shot  across  his  bosom 
and  he  began  to  believe  with  pride  that  he  was  not  only 
in  love,  but  desperately  in  love,  or  he  would  never  feel 
so  jealous.  Nevertheless,  day  after  day  still  went  by 
and  he  did  not  propose. 

The  Allabys  behaved  with  great  judgement.  They 
humoured  him  till  his  retreat  was  practically  cut  off, 
though  he  still  flattered  himself  that  it  was  open.  One 
day  about  six  months  after  Theobald  had  become  an 
almost  daily  visitor  at  the  Rectory  the  conversation  hap- 
pened to  turn  upon  long  engagements.  "I  don't  like  long 
engagements,  Mr.  Allaby,  do  you?"  said  Theobald  im- 
prudently. "No,"  said  Mr.  Allaby  in  a  pointed  tone, 
"nor  long  courtships,"  and  he  gave  Theobald  a  look 
which  he  could  not  pretend  to  misunderstand.  He  went 
back  to  Cambridge  as  fast  as  he  could  go,  and  in  dread 
of  the  conversation  with  Mr.  Allaby  which  he  felt  to  be 
impending,  composed  the  following  letter  which  he  des- 
patched that  same  afternoon  by  a  private  messenger  to 
Crampsford.  The  letter  was  as  follows : — 

"DEAREST  Miss  CHRISTINA, — I  do  not  know  whether 
you  have  guessed  the  feelings  that  I  have  long  enter- 
tained for  you — feelings  which  I  have  concealed  as  much 
as  I  could  through  fear  of  drawing  you  into  an  engage- 
ment which,  if  you  enter  into  it,  must  be  prolonged  for 
a  considerable  time,  but,  however  this  may  be,  it  is  out 
of  my  power  to  conceal  them  longer;  I  love  you,  ar- 
dently, devotedly,  and  send  these  few  lines  asking  you 
to  be  my  wife,  because  I  dare  not  trust  my  tongue  to 
give  adequate  expression  to  the  magnitude  of  my  affec- 
tion for  you. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  53 

"I  cannot  pretend  to  offer  you  a  heart  which  has  never 
known  either  love  or  disappointment.  I  have  loved  al- 
ready, and  my  heart  was  years  in  recovering  from  the 
grief  I  felt  at  seeing  her  become  another's.  That,  how- 
ever, is  over,  and  having  seen  yourself  I  rejoice  over  a 
disappointment  which  I  thought  at  one  time  would  have 
been  fatal  to  me.  It  has  left  me  a  less  ardent  lover  than 
I  should  perhaps  otherwise  have  been,  but  it  has  in- 
creased tenfold  my  power  of  appreciating  your  many 
charms  and  my  desire  that  you  should  become  my  wife. 
Please  let  me  have  a  few  lines  of  answer  by  the  bearer 
to  let  me  know  whether  or  not  my  suit  is  accepted.  If 
you  accept  me  I  will  at  once  come  and  talk  the  matter 
over  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Allaby,  whom  I  shall  hope  one 
day  to  be  allowed  to  call  father  and  mother. 

"I  ought  to  warn  you  that  in  the  event  of  your  con- 
senting to  be  my  wife  it  may  be  years  before  our  union 
can  be  consummated,  for  I  cannot  marry  till  a  college 
living  is  offered  me.  If,  therefore,  you  see  fit  to  reject 
me,  I  shall  be  grieved  rather  than  surprised. — Ever  most 
devotedly  yours,  THEOBALD  PONTIFEX." 

And  this  was  all  that  his  public  school  and  University 
education  had  been  able  to  do  for  Theobald !  Neverthe- 
less for  his  own  part  he  thought  his  letter  rather  a  good 
one,  and  congratulated  himself  in  particular  upon  his 
cleverness  in  inventing  the  story  of  a  previous  attach- 
ment, behind  which  he  intended  to  shelter  himself  if 
Christina  should  complain  of  any  lack  of  fervour  in  his 
behaviour  to  her. 

I  need  not  give  Christina's  answer,  which  of  course 
was  to  accept.  Much  as  Theobald  feared  old  Mr.  Allaby 
I  do  not  think  he  would  have  wrought  up  his  courage  to 
the  point  of  actually  proposing  but  for  the  fact  of  the 
engagement  being  necessarily  a  long  one,  during  which 
a  dozen  things  might  turn  up  to  break  it  off.  However 
much  he  may  have  disapproved  of  long  engagements  for 


54  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

other  people,  I  doubt  whether  he  had  any  particular  ob- 
jection to  them  in  his  own  case.  A  pair  of  lovers  are 
like  sunset  and  sunrise :  there  are  such  things  every  day 
but  we  very  seldom  see  them.  Theobald  posed  as  the 
most  ardent  lover  imaginable,  but,  to  use  the  vulgarism 
for  the  moment  in  fashion,  it  was  all  "side."  Christina 
was  in  love,  as  indeed  she  had  been  twenty  times  already. 
But  then  Christina  was  impressionable  and  could  not 
even  hear  the  name  "Missolonghi"  mentioned  without 
bursting  into  tears.  When  Theobald  accidentally  left 
his  sermon  case  behind  him  one  Sunday,  she  slept  with 
it  in  her  bosom  and  was  forlorn  when  she  had  as  it  were 
to  disgorge  it  on  the  following  Sunday;  but  I  do  not 
think  Theobald  ever  took  so  much  as  an  old  toothbrush 
of  Christina's  to  bed  with  him.  Why,  I  knew  a  young 
man  once  who  got  hold  of  his  mistress's  skates  and  slept 
with  them  for  a  fortnight  and  cried  when  he  had  to 
give  them  up. 

CHAPTER  XII 

THEOBALD'S  engagement  was  all  very  well  as  far  as  it 
went,  but  there  was  an  old  gentleman  with  a  bald  head 
and  rosy  cheeks  in  a  counting-house  in  Paternoster  Row 
who  must  sooner  or  later  be  told  of  what  his  son  had  in 
view,  and  Theobald's  heart  fluttered  when  he  asked  him- 
self what  view  this  old  gentleman  was  likely  to  take  of 
the  situation.  The  murder,  however,  had  to  come  out, 
and  Theobald  and  his  intended,  perhaps  imprudently, 
resolved  on  making  a  clean  breast  of  it  at  once.  He 
wrote  what  he  and  Christina,  who  helped  him  to  draft 
the  letter,  thought  to  be  everything  that  was  filial,  and 
expressed  himself  as  anxious  to  be  married  with  the 
least  possible  delay.  He  could  not  help  saying  this,  as 
Christina  was  at  his  shoulder,  and  he  knew  it  was  safe, 
for  his  father  might  be  trusted  not  to  help  him.  He 
wound  up  by  asking  his  father  to  use  any  influence  that 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  55 

might  be  at  his  command  to  help  him  to  get  a  living,  in- 
asmuch as  it  might  be  years  before  a  college  living  fell 
vacant,  and  he  saw  no  other  chance  of  being  able  to 
marry,  for  neither  he  nor  his  intended  had  any  money 
except  Theobald's  fellowship,  which  would,  of  course, 
lapse  on  his  taking  a  wife. 

Any  step  of  Theobald's  was  sure  to  be  objectionable 
in  his  father's  eyes,  but  that  at  three-and-twenty  he 
should  want  to  marry  a  penniless  girl  who  was  four 
years  older  than  himself,  afforded  a  golden  opportunity 
which  the  old  gentleman — for  so  I  may  now  call  him,  as 
he  was  at  least  sixty — embraced  with  characteristic 
eagerness. 

"The  ineffable  folly,"  he  wrote,  on  receiving  his  son's 
letter,  "of  your  fancied  passion  for  Miss  Allaby  fills  me 
with  the  gravest  apprehensions.  Making  every  allow- 
ance for  a  lover's  blindness,  I  still  have  no  doubt  that 
the  lady  herself  is  a  well-conducted  and  amiable  young 
person,  who  would  not  disgrace  our  family,  but  were  she 
ten  times  more  desirable  as  a  daughter-in-law  than  I 
can  allow  myself  to  hope,  your  joint  poverty  is  an  in- 
superable objection  to  your  marriage.  I  have  four  other 
children  besides  yourself,  and  my  expenses  do  not  per- 
mit me  to  save  money.  This  year  they  have  been  espe- 
cially heavy,  indeed  I  have  had  to  purchase  two  not  in- 
considerable pieces  of  land  which  happened  to  come  into 
the  market  and  were  necessary  to  complete  a  property 
which  I  have  long  wanted  to  round  off  in  this  way.  I 
gave  you  an  education  regardless  of  expense,  which  has 
put  you  in  possession  of  a  comfortable  income,  at  an 
age  when  many  young  men  are  dependent.  I  have  thus 
started  you  fairly  in  life,  and  may  claim  that  you  should 
cease  to  be  a  drag  upon  me  further.  Long  engagements 
are  proverbially  unsatisfactory,  and  in  the  present  case 
the  prospect  seems  interminable.  What  interest,  pray, 
do  you  suppose  I  have  that  I  could  get  a  living  for  you  ? 
Can  I  go  up  and  down  the  country  begging  people  to  pro- 


56  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

vide  for  my  son  because  he  has  taken  it  into  his  head 
to  want  to  get  married  without  sufficient  means? 

"I  do  not  wish  to  write  unkindly,  nothing  can  be  far- 
ther from  my  real  feelings  towards  you,  but  there  is 
often  more  kindness  in  plain  speaking  than  in  any 
amount  of  soft  words  which  can  end  in  no  substantial 
performance.  Of  course,  I  bear  in  mind  that  you  are  of 
age,  and  can  therefore  please  yourself,  but  if  you  choose 
to  claim  the  strict  letter  of  the  law,  and  act  without  con- 
sideration for  your  father's  feelings,  you  must  not  be  sur- 
prised if  you  one  day  find  that  I  have  claimed  a  like 
liberty  for  myself. — Believe  me,  your  affectionate  father, 

"G.  PONTIFEX." 

I  found  this  letter  along  with  those  already  given  and 
a  few  more  which  I  need  not  give,  but  throughout  which 
the  same  tone  prevails,  and  in  all  of  which  there  is  the 
more  or  less  obvious  shake  of  the  will  near  the  end  of 
the  letter.  Remembering  Theobald's  general  dumbness 
concerning  his  father  for  the  many  years  I  knew  him 
after  his  father's  death,  there  was  an  eloquence  in  the 
preservation  of  the  letters  and  in  their  endorsement, 
"Letters  from  my  father,"  which  seemed  to  have  with  it 
some  faint  odour  of  health  and  nature. 

Theobald  did  not  show  his  father's  letter  to  Chris- 
tina, nor,  indeed,  I  believe  to  anyone.  He  was  by  nature 
secretive,  and  had  been  repressed  too  much  and  too  early 
to  be  capable  of  railing  or  blowing  off  steam  where  his 
father  was  concerned.  His  sense  of  wrong  was  still  in- 
articulate, felt  as  a  dull,  dead  weight  ever  present  day 
by  day,  and  if  he  woke  at  night-time  still  continually 
present,  but  he  hardly  knew  what  it  was.  I  was  about 
the  closest  friend  he  had,  and  I  saw  but  little  of  him, 
for  I  could  not  get  on  with  him  for  long  together.  He 
said  I  had  no  reverence;  whereas,  I  thought  that  I  had 
plenty  of  reverence  for  what  deserved  to  be  revered,  but 
that  the  gods  which  he  deemed  golden  were  in  reality 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  57 

made  of  baser  metal.  He  never,  as  I  have  said,  com- 
plained of  his  father  to  me,  and  his  only  other  friends 
were,  like  himself,  staid  and  prim,  of  evangelical  ten- 
dencies, and  deeply  imbued  with  a  sense  of  the  sinful- 
ness  of  any  act  of  insubordination  to  parents — good 
young  men,  in  fact — and  one  cannot  blow  off  steam  to  a 
good  young  man. 

When  Christina  was  informed  by  her  lover  of  his 
father's  opposition,  and  of  the  time  which  must  proba- 
bly elapse  before  they  could  be  married,  she  offered — 
with  how  much  sincerity  I  know  not — to  set  him  free 
from  his  engagement;  but  Theobald  declined  to  be  re- 
leased— '"not  at  least,"  as  he  said,  "at  present."  Chris- 
tina and  Mrs.  Allaby  knew  they  could  manage  him,  and 
on  this  not  very  satisfactory  footing  the  engagement  was 
continued. 

His  engagement  and  his  refusal  to  be  released  at  once 
raised  Theobald  in  his  own  good  opinion.  Dull  as  he 
was,  he  had  no  small  share  of  quiet  self-approbation. 
He  admired  himself  for  his  University  distinction,  for 
the  purity  of  his  life  (I  said  of  him  once  that  if  he  had 
only  a  better  temper  he  would  be  as  innocent  as  a  new- 
laid  egg)  and  for  his  unimpeachable  integrity  in  money 
matters.  He  did  not  despair  of  advancement  in  the 
Church  when  he  had  once  got  a  living,  and  of  course  it 
was  within  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  he  might  one 
day  become  a  Bishop,  and  Christina  said  she  felt  con- 
vinced that  this  would  ultimately  be  the  case. 

As  was  natural  for  the  daughter  and  intended  wife  of 
a  clergyman,  Christina's  thoughts  ran  much  upon  reli- 
gion, and  she  was  resolved  that  even  though  an  exalted 
position  in  this  world  were  denied  to  her  and  Theobald, 
their  virtues  should  be  fully  appreciated  in  the  next. 
Her  religious  opinions  coincided  absolutely  with  Theo- 
bald's own,  and  many  a  conversation  did  she  have  with 
him  about  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  completeness  with 
which  they  would  devote  themselves  to  it,  as  soon  as 


58  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Theobald  had  got  his  living  and  they  were  married.  So 
certain  was  she  of  the  great  results  which  would  then 
ensue  that  she  wondered  at  times  at  the  blindness  shown 
by  Providence  towards  its 'own  truest  interests  in  not 
killing  off  the  rectors  who  stood  between  Theobald  and 
his  living  a  little  faster. 

In  those  days  people  believed  with  a  simple  down- 
rightness  which  I  do  not  observe  among  educated  men 
and  women  now.  It  had  never  so  much  as  crossed 
Theobald's  mind  to  doubt  the  literal  accuracy  of  any  syl- 
lable in  the  Bible.  He  had  never  seen  any  book  in  which 
this  was  disputed,  nor  met  with  anyone  who  doubted  it. 
True,  there  was  just  a  little  scare  about  geology,  but 
there  was  nothing  in  it.  If  it  was  said  that  God  made 
the  world  in  six  days,  why  He  did  make  it  in  six  days, 
neither  in  more  nor  less;  if  it  was  said  that  He  put 
Adam  to  sleep,  took  out  one  of  his  ribs  and  made  a 
woman  of  it,  why  it  was  so  as  a  matter  of  course.  He, 
Adam,  went  to  sleep  as  it  might  be  himself,  Theobald 
Pontifex,  in  a  garden,  as  it  might  be  the  garden  at 
Crampsford  Rectory  during  the  summer  months  when 
it  was  so  pretty,  only  that  it  was  larger,  and  had  some 
tame  wild  animals  in  it.  Then  God  came  up  to  him,  as 
it  might  be  Mr.  Allaby  or  his  father,  dexterously  took 
out  one  of  his  ribs  without  waking  him,  and  miraculously 
healed  the  wound  so  that  no  trace  of  the  operation  re- 
mained. Finally,  God  had  taken  the  rib  perhaps  into 
the  greenhouse,  and  had  turned  it  into  just  such  another 
young  woman  as  Christina.  That  was  how  it  was  done; 
there  was  neither  difficulty  nor  shadow  of  difficulty 
about  the  matter.  Could  not  God  do  anything  He  liked, 
and  had  He  not  in  His  own  inspired  Book  told  us  that 
He  had  done  this? 

This  was  the  average  attitude  of  fairly  educated  young 
men  and  women  towards  the  Mosaic  cosmogony  fifty, 
forty,  or  even  twenty  years  ago.  The  combating  of  in- 
fidelity, therefore,  offered  little  scope  for  enterprising 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  59 

young  clergymen,  nor  had  the  Church  awakened  to  the 
activity  which  she  has  since  displayed  among  the  poor 
in  our  large  towns.  These  were  then  left  almost  without 
an  effort  at  resistance  or  co-operation  to  the  labours  of 
those  who  had  succeeded  Wesley.  Missionary  work  in- 
deed in  heathen  countries  was  being  carried  on  with 
some  energy,  but  Theobald  did  not  feel  any  call  to  be  a 
missionary.  Christina  suggested  this  to  him  more  than 
once,  and  assured  him  of  the  unspeakable  happiness  it 
would  be  to  her  to  be  the  wife  of  a  missionary,  and  to 
share  his  dangers ;  she  and  Theobald  might  even  be  mar- 
tyred ;  of  course  they  would  be  martyred  simultaneously, 
and  martyrdom  many  years  hence  as  regarded  from  the 
arbour  in  the  Rectory  garden  was  not  painful;  it  would 
ensure  them  a  glorious  future  in  the  next  world,  and  at 
any  rate  posthumous  renown  in  this — even  if  they  were 
not  miraculously  restored  to  life  again — and  such  things 
had  happened  ere  now  in  the  case  of  martyrs.  Theo- 
bald, however,  had  not  been  kindled  by  Christina's  en- 
thusiasm, so  she  fell  back  upon  the  Church  of  Rome — 
an  enemy  more  dangerous,  if  possible,  than  paganism  it- 
self. A  combat  with  Romanism  might  even  yet  win  for 
her  and  Theobald  the  crown  of  martyrdom.  True,  the 
Church  of  Rome  was  tolerably  quiet  just  then,  but  it  was 
the  calm  before  the  storm,  of  this  she  was  assured,  with 
a  conviction  deeper  than  she  could  have  attained  by  any 
argument  founded  upon  mere  reason. 

"We,  dearest  Theobald,"  she  exclaimed,  "will  be  ever 
faithful.  We  will  stand  firm  and  support  one  another 
even  in  the  hour  of  death  itself.  God  in  His  mercy  may 
spare  us  from  being  burnt  alive.  He  may  or  may  not  do 
so.  O  Lord"  (and  she  turned  her  eyes  prayerfully  to 
Heaven),  "spare  my  Theobald,  or  grant  that  he  may  be 
beheaded." 

"My  dearest,"  said  Theobald  gravely,  "do  not  let  us 
agitate  ourselves  unduly.  If  the  hour  of  trial  comes  we 
shall  be  best  prepared  to  meet  it  by  having  led  a  quiet, 


60  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

unobtrusive  life  of  self-denial  and  devotion  to  God's 
glory.  Such  a  life  let  us  pray  God  that  it  may  please 
Him  to  enable  us  to  pray  that  we  may  lead." 

"Dearest  Theobald,"  exclaimed  Christina,  drying  the 
tears  that  had  gathered  in  her  eyes,  "you  are  always, 
always  right.  Let  us  be  self-denying,  pure,  upright, 
truthful  in  word  and  deed."  She  clasped  her  hands  and 
looked  up  to  Heaven  as  she  spoke. 

"Dearest,"  rejoined  her  lover,  "we  have  ever  hitherto 
endeavoured  to  be  all  of  these  things ;  we  have  not  been 
worldly  people;  let  us  watch  and  pray  that  we  may  so 
continue  to  the  end." 

The  moon  had  risen  and  the  arbour  was  getting  damp, 
so  they  adjourned  further  aspirations  for  a  more  con- 
venient season.  At  other  times  Christina  pictured  her- 
self and  Theobald  as  braving  the  scorn  of  almost  every 
human  being  in  the  achievement  of  some  mighty  task 
which  should  redound  to  the  honour  of  her  Redeemer. 
She  could  face  anything  for  this.  But  always  towards 
the  end  of  her  vision  there  came  a  little  coronation  scene 
high  up  in  the  golden  regions  of  the  Heavens,  and  a  dia- 
dem was  set  upon  her  head  by  the  Son  of  Man  Himself, 
amid  a  host  of  angels  and  archangels  who  looked  on  with 
envy  and  admiration — and  here  even  Theobald  himself 
was  out  of  it.  If  there  could  be  such  a  thing  as  the 
Mammon  of  Righteousness,  Christina  would  have  as- 
suredly made  friends  with  it.  Her  papa  and  mamma 
were  very  estimable  people  and  would  in  the  course  of 
time  receive  Heavenly  Mansions  in  which  they  would 
be  exceedingly  comfortable;  so  doubtless  would  her  sis- 
ters; so  perhaps,  even  might  her  brothers;  but  for  her- 
self she  felt  that  a  higher  destiny  was  preparing,  which 
it  was  her  duty  never  to  lose  sight  of.  The  first  step 
towards  it  would  be  her  marriage  with  Theobald.  In 
spite,  however,  of  these  flights  of  religious  romanticism, 
Christina  was  a  good-tempered  kindly-natured  girl 
enough,  who,  if  she  had  married  a  sensible  layman — we 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  61 

will  say  a  hotel-keeper — would  have  developed  into  a 
good  landlady  and  been  deservedly  popular  with  her 
guests. 

Such  was  Theobald's  engaged  life.  Many  a  little  pres- 
ent passed  between  the  pair,  and  many  a  small  surprise 
did  they  prepare  pleasantly  for  one  another.  They  never 
quarrelled,  and  neither  of  them  ever  flirted  with  anyone 
else.  Mrs.  Allaby  and  his  future  sisters-in-law  idolised 
Theobald  in  spite  of  its  being  impossible  to  get  another 
deacon  to  come  and  be  played  for  as  long  as  Theobald 
was  able  to  help  Mr.  Allaby,  which  now  of  course  he 
did  free  gratis  and  for  nothing;  two  of  the  sisters,  how- 
ever, did  manage  to  find  husbands  before  Christina  was 
actually  married,  and  on  each  occasion  Theobald  played 
the  part  of  decoy  elephant.  In  the  end  only  two  out  of 
the  seven  daughters  remained  single. 

After  three  or  four  years,  old  Mr.  Pontifex  became 
accustomed  to  his  son's  engagement  and  looked  upon  it 
as  among  the  things  which  had  now  a  prescriptive  right 
to  toleration.  In  the  spring  of  1831,  more  than  five  years 
after  Theobald  had  first  walked  over  to  Crampsford,  one 
of  the  best  livings  in  the  gift  of  the  College  unexpectedly 
fell  vacant,  and  was  for  various  reasons  declined  by  the 
two  fellows  senior  to  Theobald,  who  might  each  have 
been  expected  to  take  it.  The  living  was  then  offered  to 
and  of  course  accepted  by  Theobald,  being  in  value  not 
less  than  £500  a  year  with  a  suitable  house  and  garden. 
Old  Mr.  Pontifex  then  came  down  more  handsomely 
than  was  expected  and  settled  £10,000  on  his  son  and 
daughter-in-law  for  life  with  remainder  to  such  of  their 
issue  as  they  might  appoint.  In  the  month  of  July,  1831, 
Theobald  and  Christina  became  man  and  wife. 


62  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


CHAPTER  XIII 

A  DUE  number  of  old  shoes  had  been  thrown  at  the 
carriage  in  which  the  happy  pair  departed  from  the 
Rectory,  and  it  had  turned  the  corner  at  the  bottom  of 
the  village.  It  could  then  be  seen  for  two  or  three  hun- 
dred yards  creeping  past  a  fir  coppice,  and  after  this 
was  lost  to  view. 

"John,"  said  Mr.  Allaby  to  his  man-servant,  "shut  the 
gate;"  and  he  went  indoors  with  a  sigh  of  relief  which 
seemed  to  say:  "I  have  done  it,  and  I  am  alive."  This 
was  the  reaction  after  a  burst  of  enthusiastic  merriment 
during  which  the  old  gentleman  had  run  twenty  yards 
after  the  carriage  to  fling  a  slipper  at  it — which  he  had 
duly  flung. 

But  what  were  the  feelings  of  Theobald  and  Christina 
when  the  village  was  passed  and  they  were  rolling  quietly 
by  the  fir  plantation?  It  is  at  this  point  that  even  the 
stoutest  heart  must  fail,  unless  it  beat  in  the  breast  of 
one  who  is  over  head  and  ears  in  love.  If  a  young  man 
is  in  a  small  boat  on  a  choppy  sea,  along  with  his  af- 
fianced bride  and  both  are  seasick,  and  if  the  sick  swain 
can  forget  his  own  anguish  in  the  happiness  of  holding 
the  fair  one's  head  when  she  is  at  her  worst — then  he  is 
in  love,  and  his  heart  will  be  in  no  danger  of  failing  him 
as  he  passes  his  fir  plantation.  Other  people,  and  unfor- 
tunately by  far  the  greater  number  of  those  who  get 
married  must  be  classed  among  the  "other  people,"  will 
inevitably  go  through  a  quarter  or  half  an  hour  of 
greater  or  less  badness  as  the  case  may  be.  Taking  num- 
bers into  account,  I  should  think  more  mental  suffering 
had  been  undergone  in  the  streets  leading  from  St. 
George's  Hanover  Square,  than  in  the  condemned  cells 
of  Newgate.  There  is  no  time  at  which  what  the  Italians 
call  la  figlia  delta  Morte  lays  her  cold  hand  upon  a  man 
more  awfully  than  during  the  first  half  hour  that  he  is 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  63 

alone  with  a  woman  whom  he  has  married  but  never 
genuinely  loved. 

Death's  daughter  did  not  spare  Theobald.  He  had  be- 
haved very  well  hitherto.  When  Christina  had  offered 
to  let  him  go,  he  had  stuck  to  his  post  with  a  magnanim- 
ity on  which  he  had  plumed  himself  ever  since.  From 
that  time  forward  he  had  said  to  himself:  "I,  at  any 
rate,  am  the  very  soul  of  honour;  I  am  not,"  etc.,  etc. 
True,  at  the  moment  of  magnanimity  the  actual  cash 
payment,  so  to  speak,  was  still  distant ;  when  his  father 
gave  formal  consent  to  his  marriage  things  began  to  look 
more  serious;  when  the  college  living  had  fallen  vacant 
and  been  accepted  they  looked  more  serious  still;  but 
when  Christina  actually  named  the  day,  then  Theobald's 
heart  fainted  within  him. 

The  engagement  had  gone  on  so  long  that  he  had  got 
into  a  groove,  and  the  prospect  of  change  was  discon- 
certing. Christina  and  he  had  got  on,  he  thought  to  him- 
self, very  nicely  for  a  great  number  of  years ;  why — 
why — why  should  they  not  continue  to  go  on  as  they 
were  doing  now  for  the  rest  of  their  lives?  But  there 
was  no  more  chance  of  escape  for  him  than  for  the  sheep 
which  is  being  driven  to  the  butcher's  back  premises, 
and  like  the  sheep  he  felt  that  there  was  nothing  to  be 
gained  by  resistance,  so  he  made  none.  He  behaved,  in 
fact,  with  decency,  and  was  declared  on  all  hands  to  be 
one  of  the  happiest  men  imaginable. 

Now,  however,  to  change  the  metaphor,  the  drop  had 
actually  fallen,  and  the  poor  wretch  was  hanging  in  mid 
air  along  with  the  creature  of  his  affections.  This  crea- 
ture was  now  thirty-three  years  old,  and  looked  it :  she 
had  been  weeping,  and  her  eyes  and  nose  were  reddish; 
if  "I  have  done  it  and  I  am  alive,"  was  written  on  Mr. 
Allaby's  face  after  he  had  thrown  the  shoe,  "I  have  done 
it,  and  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  possibly  live  much  longer" 
was  upon  the  face  of  Theobald  as  he  was  being  driven 
along  by  the  fir  plantation.  This,  however,  was  not  ap- 


64  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

parent  at  the  Rectory.  All  that  could  be  seen  there  was 
the  bobbing  up  and  down  of  the  postilion's  head,  which 
just  over-topped  the  hedge  by  the  roadside  as  he  rose 
in  his  stirrups,  and  the  black  and  yellow  body  of  the 
carriage. 

For  some  time  the  pair  said  nothing:  what  they  must 
have  felt  during  the  first  half  hour,  the  reader  must 
guess,  for  it  is  beyond  my  power  to  tell  him;  at  the  end 
of  that  time,  however,  Theobald  had  rummaged  up  a 
conclusion  from  some  odd  corner  of  his  soul  to  the  effect 
that  now  he  and  Christina  were  married,  the  sooner  they 
fell  into  their  future  mutual  relations  the  better.  If 
people  who  are  in  a  difficulty  will  only  do  the  first  little 
reasonable  thing  which  they  can  clearly  recognise  as  rea- 
sonable, they  will  always  find  the  next  step  more  easy 
both  to  see  and  take.  What,  then,  thought  Theobald, 
was  here  at  this  moment  the  first  and  most  obvious  mat- 
ter to  be  considered,  and  what  would  be  an  equitable 
view  of  his  and  Christina's  relative  positions  in  respect 
to  it?  Clearly  their  first  dinner  was  their  first  joint  entry 
into  the  duties  and  pleasures  of  married  life.  No  less 
clearly  it  was  Christina's  duty  to  order  it,  and  his  own 
to  eat  it  and  pay  for  it. 

The  arguments  leading  to  this  conclusion,  and  the 
conclusion  itself,  flashed  upon  Theobald  about  three  and 
a  half  miles  after  he  had  left  Crampsford  on  the  road 
to  Newmarket.  He  had  breakfasted  early,  but  his  usual 
appetite  had  failed  him.  They  had  left  the  vicarage  at 
noon  without  staying  for  the  wedding  breakfast.  Theo- 
bald liked  an  early  dinner;  it  dawned  upon  him  that  he 
was  beginning  to  be  hungry ;  from  this  to  the  conclusion 
stated  in  the  preceding  paragraph  the  steps  had  been 
easy.  After  a  few  minutes'  further  reflection  he 
broached  the  matter  to  his  bride,  and  thus  the  ice  was 
broken. 

Mrs.  Theobald  was  not  prepared  for  so  sudden  an 
assumption  of  importance.  Her  nerves,  never  of  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  65 

strongest,  had  been  strung  to  their  highest  tension  by 
the  event  of  the  morning.  She  wanted  to  escape  obser- 
vation; she  was  conscious  of  looking  a  little  older  than 
she  quite  liked  to  look  as  a  bride  who  had  been  married 
that  morning;  she  feared  the  landlady,  the  chamber- 
maid, the  waiter — everybody  and  everything;  her  heart 
beat  so  fast  that  she  could  hardly  speak,  much  less  go 
through  the  ordeal  of  ordering  dinner  in  a  strange  hotel 
with  a  strange  landlady.  She  begged  and  prayed  to  be 
let  off.  If  Theobald  would  only  order  dinner  this  once, 
she  would  order  it  any  day  and  every  day  in  future. 

But  the  inexorable  Theobald  was  not  to  be  put  off 
with  such  absurd  excuses.  He  was  master  now.  Had 
not  Christina  less  than  two  hours  ago  promised  sol- 
emnly to  honour  and  obey  him,  and  was  she  turning  res- 
tive over  such  a  trifle  as  this?  The  loving  smile  de- 
parted from  his  face,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  scowl 
which  that  old  Turk,  his  father,  might  have  envied. 
"Stuff  and  nonsense,  my  dearest  Christina,"  he  ex- 
claimed mildly,  and  stamped  his  foot  upon  the  floor  of 
the  carriage.  "It  is  a  wife's  duty  to  order  her  hus- 
band's dinner;  you  are  my  wife,  and  I  shall  expect  you 
to  order  mine."  For  Theobald  was  nothing  if  he  was  not 
logical. 

The  bride  began  to  cry,  and  said  he  was  unkind; 
whereon  he  said  nothing,  but  revolved  unutterable  things 
in  his  heart.  Was  this,  then,  the  end  of  his  six  years  of 
unflagging  devotion?  Was  it  for  this  that,  when  Chris- 
tina had  offered  to  let  him  off,  he  had  stuck  to  his  en- 
gagement? Was  this  the  outcome  of  her  talks  about 
duty  and  spiritual  mindedness — that  now  upon  the  very 
day  of  her  marriage  she  should  fail  to  see  that  the  first 
step  in  obedience  to  God  lay  in  obedience  to  himself? 
He  would  drive  back  to  Crampsford ;  he  would  com- 
plain to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Allaby;  he  didn't  mean  to  have 
married  Christina ;  he  hadn't  married  her ;  it  was  all 
a  hideous  dream;  he  would But  a  voice  kept  ring- 


66  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

ing  in  his  ears  which  said :    "You  CAN'T,  CAN'T,  CAN'T." 
"CAN'T  I?"  screamed  the  unhappy  creature  to  him- 
self. 

"No,"  said  the  remorseless  voice,  "YOU  CAN'T.     You 

ARE  A   MARRIED   MAN." 

He  rolled  back  in  his  corner  of  the  carriage  and  for 
the  first  time  felt  how  iniquitous  were  the  marriage  laws 
of  England.  But  he  would  buy  Milton's  prose  works 
and  read  his  pamphlet  on  divorce.  He  might  perhaps  be 
able  to  get  them  at  Newmarket. 

So  the  bride  sat  crying  in  one  corner  of  the  carriage ; 
and  the  bridegroom  sulked  in  the  other,  and  he  feared 
her  as  only  a  bridegroom  can  fear. 

Presently,  however,  a  feeble  voice  was  heard  from 
the  bride's  corner  saying: 

"Dearest  Theobald — dearest  Theobald,  forgive  me;  I 
have  been  very,  very  wrong.  Please  do  not  be  angry 
with  me.  I  will  order  the — the "  but  the  word  "din- 
ner" was  checked  by  rising  sobs. 

When  Theobald  heard  these  words  a  load  began  to  be 
lifted  from  his  heart,  but  he  only  looked  towards  her, 
and  that  not  too  pleasantly. 

"Please  tell  me,"  continued  the  voice,  "what  you  think 
you  would  like,  and  I  will  tell  the  landlady  when  we  get 

to  Newmar "  but  another  burst  of  sobs  checked  the 

completion  of  the  word. 

The  load  on  Theobald's  heart  grew  lighter  and  lighter. 
Was  it  possible  that  she  might  not  be  going  to  henpeck 
him  after  all?  Besides,  had  she  not  diverted  his  atten- 
tion from  herself  to  his  approaching  dinner? 

He  swallowed  down  more  of  his  apprehensions  and 
said,  but  still  gloomily,  "I  think  we  might  have  a  roast 
fowl  with  bread  sauce,  new  potatoes  and  green  peas, 
and  then  we  will  see  if  they  could  let  us  have  a  cherry 
tart  and  some  cream." 

After  a  few  minutes  more  he  drew  her  towards  him, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  67 

kissed  away  her  tears,  and  assured  her  that  he  knew 
she  would  be  a  good  wife  to  him. 

"Dearest  Theobald,"  she  exclaimed  in  answer,  "you 
are  an  angel." 

Theobald  believed  her,  and  in  ten  minutes  more  the 
happy  couple  alighted  at  the  inn  at  Newmarket. 

Bravely  did  Christina  go  through  her  arduous  task. 
Eagerly  did  she  beseech  the  landlady,  in  secret,  not  to 
keep  her  Theobald  waiting  longer  than  was  absolutely 
necessary. 

"If  you  have  any  soup  ready,  you  know,  Mrs.  Barber, 
it  might  save  ten  minutes,  for  we  might  have  it  while  the 
fowl  was  browning." 

See  how  necessity  had  nerved  her!  But  in  truth  she 
had  a  splitting  headache,  and  would  have  given  anything 
to  have  been  alone. 

The  dinner  was  a  success.  A  pint  of  sherry  had 
warmed  Theobald's  heart,  and  he  began  to  hope  that, 
after  all,  matters  might  still  go  well  with  him.  He  had 
conquered  in  the  first  battle,  and  this  gives  great  pres- 
tige. How  easy  it  had  been  too !  Why  had  he  never 
treated  his  sisters  in  this  way?  He  would  do  so  next 
time  he  saw  them ;  he  might  in  time  be  able  to  stand  up 
to  his  brother  John,  or  even  his  father.  Thus  do  we 
build  castles  in  air  when  flushed  with  wine  and  con- 
quest. 

The  end  of  the  honeymoon  saw  Mrs.  Theobald  the 
most  devotedly  obsequious  wife  in  all  England.  Accord- 
ing to  the  old  saying,  Theobald  had  killed  the  cat  at  the 
beginning.  It  had  been  a  very  little  cat,  a  mere  kitten 
in  fact,  or  he  might  have  been  afraid  to  face  it,  but  such 
as  it  had  been  he  had  challenged  it  to  mortal  combat, 
and  had  held  up  its  dripping  head  defiantly  before  his 
wife's  face.  The  rest  had  been  easy. 

Strange  that  one  whom  I  have  described  hitherto  as 
so  timid  and  easily  put  upon  should  prove  such  a  Tartar 


68  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

all  of  a  sudden  on  the  day  of  his  marriage.  Perhaps  I 
have  passed  over  his  years  of  courtship  too  rapidly. 
During  these  he  had  become  a  tutor  of  his  college,  and 
had  at  last  been  Junior  Dean.  I  never  yet  knew  a  man 
whose  sense  of  his  own  importance  did  not  become  ade- 
quately developed  after  he  had  held  a  resident  fellowship 
for  five  or  six  years.  True — immediately  on  arriving 
within  a  ten  mile  radius  of  his  father's  house,  an  en- 
chantment fell  upon  him,  so  that  his  knees  waxed  weak, 
his  greatness  departed,  and  he  again  felt  himself  like  an 
overgrown  baby  under  a  perpetual  cloud;  but  then  he 
was  not  often  at  Elmhurst,  and  as  soon  as  he  left  it  the 
spell  was  taken  off  again ;  once  more  he  became  the  fel- 
low and  tutor  of  his  college,  the  Junior  Dean,  the  be- 
trothed of  Christina,  the  idol  of  the  Allaby  womankind. 
From  all  which  may  be  gathered  that  if  Christina  had 
been  a  Barbary  hen,  and  had  ruffled  her  feathers  in  any 
show  of  resistance,  Theobald  would  not  have  ventured 
to  swagger  with  her,  but  she  was  not  a  Barbary  hen,  she 
was  only  a  common  hen,  and  that  too  with  rather  a 
smaller  share  of  personal  bravery  than  hens  generally 
have. 

CHAPTER  XIV 

BATTERSBY-ON-THE-HILL  was  the  name  of  the  village  of 
which  Theobald  was  now  Rector.  It  contained  400  or 
500  inhabitants,  scattered  over  a  rather  large  area,  and 
consisting  entirely  of  farmers  and  agricultural  labourers. 
The  Rectory  was  commodious,  and  placed  on  the  brow 
of  a  hill  which  gave  it  a  delightful  prospect.  There  was 
a  fair  sprinkling  of  neighbours  within  visiting  range,  but 
with  one  or  two  exceptions  they  were  the  clergymen  and 
clergymen's  families  of  the  surrounding  villages. 

By  these  the  Pontifexes  were  welcomed  as  great  ac- 
quisitions to  the  neighbourhood.  Mr.  Pontifex,  they 
said,  was  so  clever ;  he  had  been  senior  classic  and  senior 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  69 

wrangler ;  a  perfect  genius  in  fact,  and  yet  with  so  much 
sound  practical  common  sense  as  well.  As  son  of  such 
a  distinguished  man  as  the  great  Mr.  Pontifex,  the  pub- 
lisher, he  would  come  into  a  large  property  by-and-by. 
Was  there  not  an  elder  brother?  Yes,  but  there  would 
be  so  much  that  Theobald  would  probably  get  something 
very  considerable.  Of  course  they  would  give  dinner 
parties.  And  Mrs.  Pontifex,  what  a  charming  woman 
she  was ;  she  was  certainly  not  exactly  pretty  perhaps, 
but  then  she  had  such  a  sweet  smile  and  her  manner  was 
so  bright  and  winning.  She  was  so  devoted  too  to  her 
husband  and  her  husband  to  her;  they  really  did  come 
up  to  one's  ideas  of  what  lovers  used  to  be  in  days  of 
old ;  it  was  rare  to  meet  with  such  a  pair  in  these  degen- 
erate times ;  it  was  quite  beautiful,  etc.,  etc.  Such  were 
the  comments  of  the  neighbours  on  the  new  arrivals. 

As  for  Theobald's  own  parishioners,  the  farmers  were 
civil  and  the  labourers  and  their  wives  obsequious. 
There  was  a  little  dissent,  the  legacy  of  a  careless  pred- 
ecessor, but  a,s  Mrs.  Theobald  said  proudly,  "I  think 
Theobald  may  be  trusted  to  deal  with  that"  The 
church  was  then  an  interesting  specimen  of  late  Norman, 
with  some  early  English  additions.  It  was  what  in  these 
days  would  be  called  in  a  very  bad  state  of  repair,  but 
forty  or  fifty  years  ago  few  churches  were  in  good  re- 
pair. If  there  is  one  feature  more  characteristic  of  the 
present  generation  than  another  it  is  that  it  has  been  a 
great  restorer  of  churches. 

Horace  preached  church  restoration  in  his  ode: — 

Delicta,  majorum  immeritus  lues, 
Romane,  donee  templa  refeceris 
Aedesque  labentes  deorum  et 
Foeda  nigro  simulacra  fumo. 

Nothing  went  right  with  Rome  for  long  together  after 
the  Augustan  age,  but  whether  it  was  because  she  did 
restore  the  temples  or  because  she  did  not  restore  them, 


70  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

I  know  not.  They  certainly  went  all  wrong  after  Con- 
stantine's  time  and  yet  Rome  is  still  a  city  of  some  im- 
portance. 

I  may  say  here  that  before  Theobald  had  been  many 
years  at  Battersby  he  found  scope  for  useful  work  in  the 
rebuilding  of  Battersby  church,  which  he  carried  out  at 
considerable  cost,  towards  which  he  subscribed  liberally 
himself.  He  was  his  own  architect,  and  this  saved  ex- 
pense; but  architecture  was  not  very  well  understood 
about  the  year  1834,  when  Theobald  commenced  opera- 
tions, and  the  result  is  not  as  satisfactory  as  it  would 
have  been  if  he  had  waited  a  few  years  longer. 

Every  man's  work,  whether  it  be  literature  or  music 
or  pictures  or  architecture  or  anything  else,  is  always  a 
portrait  of  himself,  and  the  more  he  tries  to  conceal  him- 
self the  more  clearly  will  his  character  appear  in  spite 
of  him.  I  may  very  likely  be  condemning  myself,  all 
the  time  that  I  am  writing  this  book,  for  I  know  that 
whether  I  like  it  or  no  I  am  portraying  myself  more 
surely  than  I  am  portraying  any  of  the  characters  whom 
I  set  before  the  reader.  I  am  sorry  that  it  is  so,  but  I 
cannot  help  it — after  which  sop  to  Nemesis  I  will  say 
that  Battersby  church  in  its  amended  form  has  always 
struck  me  as  a  better  portrait  of  Theobald  than  any 
sculptor  or  painter  short  of  a  great  master  would  be 
able  to  produce. 

I  remember  staying  with  Theobald  some  six  or  seven 
months  after  he  was  married,  and  while  the  old  church 
was  still  standing.  I  went  to  church,  and  felt  as  Naaman 
must  have  felt  on  certain  occasions  when  he  had  to  ac- 
company his  master  on  his  return  after  having  been 
cured  of  his  leprosy.  I  have  carried  away  a  more  vivid 
recollection  of  this  and  of  the  people,  than  of  Theobald's 
sermon.  Even  now  I  can  see  the  men  in  blue  smock 
frocks  reaching  to  their  heels,  and  more  than  one  old 
woman  in  a  scarlet  cloak;  the  row  of  stolid,  dull,  vacant 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  71 

plough-boys,  ungainly  in  build,  uncomely  in  face,  lifeless, 
apathetic,  a  race  a  good  deal  more  like  the  pre-revolution 
French  peasant  as  described  by  Carlyle  than  is  pleasant 
to  reflect  upon — a  race  now  supplanted  by  a  smarter, 
comelier  and  more  hopeful  generation,  which  has  dis- 
covered that  it  too  has  a  right  to  as  much  happiness  as 
it  can  get,  and  with  clearer  ideas  about  the  best  means 
of  getting  it. 

They  shamble  in  one  after  another,  with  steaming 
breath,  for  it  is  winter,  and  loud  clattering  of  hob-nailed 
boots;  they  beat  the  snow  from  off  them  as  they  enter, 
and  through  the  opened  door  I  catch  a  momentary 
glimpse  of  a  dreary,  leaden  sky  and  snow-clad  tomb- 
stones. Somehow  or  other  I  find  the  strain  which  Han- 
del has  wedded  to  the  words  "There  the  ploughman  near 
at  hand,"  has  got  into  my  head  and  there  is  no  getting 
it  out  again.  How  marvellously  old  Handel  understood 
these  people! 

They  bob  to  Theobald  as  they  pass  the  reading  desk 
("The  people  hereabouts  are  truly  respectful,"  whis- 
pered Christina  to  me;  "they  know  their  betters"),  and 
take  their  seats  in  a  long  row  against  the  wall.  The 
choir  clamber  up  into  the  gallery  with  their  instruments 
— a  violoncello,  a  clarinet  and  a  trombone.  I  see  them 
and  soon  I  hear  them,  for  there  is  a  hymn  before  the 
service,  a  wild  strain,  a  remnant,  if  I  mistake  not,  of 
some  pre-Re formation  litany.  I  have  heard  what  I  be- 
lieve was  its  remote  musical  progenitor  in  the  church  of 
SS.  Giovanni  e  Paolo  at  Venice  not  five  years  since;  and 
again  I  have  heard  it  far  away  in  mid-Atlantic  upon  a 
grey  sea-Sabbath  in  June,  when  neither  winds  nor  waves 
are  stirring,  so  that  the  emigrants  gather  on  deck,  and 
their  plaintive  psalm  goes  forth  upon  the  silver  haze  of 
the  sky,  and  on  the  wilderness  of  a  sea  that  has  sighed 
till  it  can  sigh  no  longer.  Or  it  may  be  heard  at  some 
Methodist  Camp  Meeting  upon  a  Welsh  hillside,  but  in 


72  The  Way  of  All  FlesK 

the  churches  it  is  gone  forever.  If  I  were  a  musician  I 
would  take  it  as  the  subject  for  the  adagio  in  a  Wesleyan 
symphony. 

Gone  now  are  the  clarinet,  the  violoncello  and  the 
trombone,  wild  minstrelsy  as  of  the  doleful  creatures  in 
Ezekiel,  discordant,  but  infinitely  pathetic.  Gone  is  that 
scarebabe  stentor,  that  bellowing  bull  of  Bashan,  the 
village  blacksmith,  gone  is  the  melodious  carpenter,  gone 
the  brawny  shepherd  with  the  red  hair,  who  roared  more 
lustily  than  all,  until  they  came  to  the  words,  "Shepherds, 
with  your  flocks  abiding,"  when  modesty  covered  him 
with  confusion,  and  compelled  him  to  be  silent,  as 
though  his  own  health  were  being  drunk.  They  were 
doomed  and  had  a  presentiment  of  evil,  even  when  first 
I  saw  them,  but  they  had  still  a  little  lease  of  choir  life 
remaining,  and  they  roared  out: 

. J  «rf  fff^J  .ULJ  J-fJ-fti. 

wick  •  ed  bands  hav«  pierced  and  nailed  him,  pierced  and  nailed  him    to     a     tree. 

but  no  description  can  give  a  proper  idea  of  the  effect. 
When  I  was  last  in  Battersby  church  there  was  a  har- 
monium played  by  a  sweet-looking  girl  with  a  choir  of 
school  children  around  her,  and  they  chanted  the  canti- 
cles to  the  most  correct  of  chants,  and  they  sang  Hymns 
Ancient  and  Modern ;  the  high  pews  were  gone,  nay,  the 
very  gallery  in  which  the  old  choir  had  sung  was  re- 
moved as  an  accursed  thing  which  might  remind  the 
people  of  the  high  places,  and  Theobald  was  old,  and 
Christina  was  lying  under  the  yew  tree*  in  the  church- 
yard. 

But  in  the  evening  later  on  I  saw  three  very  old  men 
come  chuckling  out  of  a  dissenting  chapel,  and  surely 
enough  they  were  my  old  friends  the  blacksmith,  the 
carpenter  and  the  shepherd.  There  was  a  look  of  con- 
tent upon  their  faces  which  made  me  feel  certain  they 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  73 

had  been  singing;  not  doubtless  with  the  old  glory  of 
the  violoncello,  the  clarinet  and  the  trombone,  but  still 
songs  of  Sion  and  no  new  fangled  papistry. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  hymn  had  engaged  my  attention ;  when  it  was  over 
I  had  time  to  take  stock  of  the  congregation.  They 
were  chiefly  farmers — fat,  very  well-to-do  folk,  who  had 
come  some  of  them  with  their  wives  and  children  from 
outlying  farms  two  and  three  miles  away;  haters  of 
popery  and  of  anything  which  any  one  might  choose  to 
say  was  popish ;  good,  sensible  fellows  who  detested 
theory  of  any  kind,  whose  ideal  was  the  maintenance  of 
the  status  quo  with  perhaps  a  loving  reminiscence  of  old 
war  times,  and  a  sense  of  wrong  that  the  weather  was 
not  more  completely  under  their  control,  who  desired 
higher  prices  and  cheaper  wages,  but  otherwise  were 
most  contented  when  things  were  changing  least ;  tolera- 
tors,  if  not  lovers,  of  all  that  was  familiar,  haters  of  all 
that  was  unfamiliar;  they  would  have  been  equally  hor- 
rified at  hearing  the  Christian  religion  doubted,  and  at 
seeing  it  practised. 

"What  can  there  be  in  common  between  Theobald  and 
his  parishioners?"  said  Christina  to  me,  in  the  course  of 
the  evening,  when  her  husband  was  for  a  few  moments 
absent.  "Of  course  one  must  not  complain,  but  I  assure 
you  it  grieves  me  to  see  a  man  of  Theobald's  ability 
thrown  away  upon  such  a  place  as  this.  If  we  had  only 
been  at  Gaysbury,  where  there  are  the  A's,  the  B's,  the 
C's,  and  Lord  D's  place,  as  you  know,  quite  close,  I  should 
not  then  have  felt  that  we  were  living  in  such  a  desert ; 
but  I  suppose  it  is  for  the  best,"  she  added  more  cheer- 
fully; "and  then  of  course  the  Bishop  will  come  to  us 
whenever  he  is  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  if  we  were  at 
Gaysbury  he  might  have  gone  to  Lord  D's." 


74  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Perhaps  I  have  now  said  enough  to  indicate  the  kind 
of  place  in  which  Theobald's  lines  were  cast,  and  the  sort 
of  woman  he  had  married.  As  for  his  own  habits,  I 
see  him  trudging  through  muddy  lanes  and  over  long 
sweeps  of  plover-haunted  pastures  to  visit  a  dying  cot- 
tager's wife.  He  takes  her  meat  and  wine  from  his  own 
table,  and  that  not  a  little  only  but  liberally.  According 
to  his  lights  also,  he  administers  what  he  is  pleased  to 
call  spiritual  consolation. 

"I  am  afraid  I'm  going  to  Hell,  Sir,"  says  the  sick 
woman  with  a  whine.  "Oh,  Sir,  save  me,  save  me,  don't 
let  me  go  there.  I  couldn't  stand  it,  Sir,  I  should  die 
with  fear,  the  very  thought  of  it  drives  me  into  a  cold 
sweat  all  over." 

"Mrs.  Thompson,"  says  Theobald  gravely,  "you  must 
have  faith  in  the  precious  blood  of  your  Redeemer;  it  is 
He  alone  who  can  save  you." 

"But  are  you  sure,  Sir,"  says  she,  looking  wistfully  at 
him,  "that  He  will  forgive  me — for  I've  not  been  a  very 
good  woman,  indeed  I  haven't — and  if  God  would  only 
say  'Yes'  outright  with  His  mouth  when  I  ask  whether 
my  sins  are  forgiven  me " 

"But  they  are  forgiven  you,  Mrs.  Thompson,"  says 
Theobald  with  some  sternness,  for  the  same  ground  has 
been  gone  over  a  good  many  times  already,  and  he  has 
borne  the  unhappy  woman's  misgivings  now  for  a  full 
quarter  of  an  hour.  Then  he  puts  a  stop  to  the  conver- 
sation by  repeating  prayers  taken  from  the  "Visitation 
of  the  Sick,"  and  overawes  the  poor  wretch  from  ex- 
pressing further  anxiety  as  to  her  condition. 

"Can't  you  tell  me,  Sir,"  she  exclaims  piteously,  as  she 
sees  that  he  is  preparing  to  go  away,  "can't  you  tell  me 
that  there  is  no  Day  of  Judgement,  and  that  there  is  no 
such  place  as  Hell?  I  can  do  without  the  Heaven,  Sir, 
but  I  cannot  do  with  the  Hell."  Theobald  is  much 
shocked. 

"Mrs.   Thompson,"  he  rejoins  impressively,   "let  me 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  75 

implore  you  to  suffer  no  doubt  concerning  these  two  cor- 
nerstones of  our  religion  to  cross  your  mind  at  a  moment 
like  the  present.  If  there  is  one  thing  more  certain  than 
another  it  is  that  we  shall  all  appear  before  the  Judge- 
ment Seat  of  Christ,  and  that  the  wicked  will  be  con- 
sumed in  a  lake  of  everlasting  fire.  Doubt  this,  Mrs. 
Thompson,  and  you  are  lost." 

The  poor  woman  buries  her  fevered  head  in  the  cover- 
let in  a  paroxysm  of  fear  which  at  last  finds  relief  in 
tears. 

"Mrs.  Thompson,"  says  Theobald,  with  his  hand  on 
the  door,  "compose  yourself,  be  calm;  you  must  please 
to  take  my  word  for  it  that  at  the  Day  of  Judgement 
your  sins  will  be  all  washed  white  in  the  blood  of 
the  Lamb,  Mrs.  Thompson.  Yea,"  he  exclaims  fran- 
tically, "though  they  be  as  scarlet,  yet  shall  they  be 
as  white  as  wool,"  and  he  makes  off  as  fast  as  he  can 
from  the  fetid  atmosphere  of  the  cottage  to  the  pure 
air  outside.  Oh,  how  thankful  he  is  when  the  interview 
is  over ! 

He  returns  home,  conscious  that  he  has  done  his  duty, 
and  administered  the  comforts  of  religion  to  a  dying 
sinner.  His  admiring  wife  awaits  him  at  the  Rectory, 
and  assures  him  that  never  yet  was  clergyman  so  devoted 
to  the  welfare  of  his  flock.  He  believes  her;  he  has  a 
natural  tendency  to  believe  anything  that  is  told  him, 
and  who  should  know  the  facts  of  the  case  better  than  his 
wife?  Poor  fellow!  He  has  done  his  best,  but  what 
does  a  fish's  best  come  to  when  the  fish  is  out  of  water? 
He  has  left  meat  and  wine — that  he  can  do;  he  will  call 
again  and  will  leave  more  meat  and  wine;  day  after  day 
he  trudges  over  the  same  plover-haunted  fields,  and  lis- 
tens at  the  end  of  his  walk  to  the  same  agony  of  fore- 
bodings, which  day  after  day  he  silences,  but  does  not 
remove,  till  at  last  a  merciful  weakness  renders  the  suf- 
ferer careless  of  her  future,  and  Theobald  is  satisfied 
that  her  mind  is  now  peacefully  at  rest  in  Jesus. 


76  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


CHAPTER  XVI 

HE  does  not  like  this  branch  of  his  profession — indeed 
he  hates  it — but  will  not  admit  it  to  himself.  The  habit 
of  not  admitting  things  to  himself  has  become  a  con- 
firmed one  with  him.  Nevertheless  there  haunts  him  an 
ill  defined  sense  that  life  would  be  pleasanter  if  there 
were  no  sick  sinners,  or  if  they  would  at  any  rate  face  an 
eternity  of  torture  with  more  indifference.  He  does  not 
feel  that  he  is  in  his  element.  The  farmers  look  as  if 
they  were  in  their  element.  They  are  full-bodied,  healthy 
and  contented ;  but  between  him  and  them  there  is  a 
great  gulf  fixed.  A  hard  and  drawn  look  begins  to  set- 
tle about  the  corners  of  his  mouth,  so  that  even  if  he 
were  not  in  a  black  coat  and  white  tie  a  child  might 
know  him  for  a  parson. 

He  knows  that  he  is  doing  his  duty.  Every  day  con- 
vinces him  of  this  more  firmly;  but  then  there  is  not 
much  duty  for  him  to  do.  He  is  sadly  in  want  of  occu- 
pation. He  has  no  taste  for  any  of  those  field  sports 
which  were  not  considered  unbecoming  for  a  clergyman 
forty  years  ago.  He  does  not  ride,  nor  shoot,  nor  fish, 
nor  course,  nor  play  cricket.  Study,  to  do  him  justice, 
he  had  never  really  liked,  and  what  inducement  was 
there  for  him  to  study  at  Battersby?  He  reads  neither 
old  books  nor  new  ones.  He  does  not  interest  himself 
in  art  or  science  or  politics,  but  he  sets  his  back  up  with 
some  promptness  if  any  of  them  show  any  development 
unfamiliar  to  himself.  True,  he  writes  his  own  sermons, 
but  even  his  wife  considers  that  his  forte  lies  rather  in 
the  example  of  his  life  (which  is  one  long  act  of  self- 
devotion)  than  in  his  utterances  from  the  pulpit.  After 
breakfast  he  retires  to  his  study;  he  cuts  little  bits  out  of 
the  Bible  and  gums  them  with  exquisite  neatness  by  the 
side  of  other  little  bits ;  this  he  calls  making  a  Harmony 
of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  Alongside  the  extracts 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  77 

he  copies  in  the  very  perfection  of  hand-writing  extracts 
from  Mede  (the  only  man,  according  to  Theobald,  who 
really  understood  the  Book  of  Revelation),  Patrick,  and 
other  old  divines.  He  works  steadily  at  this  for  half 
an  hour  every  morning  during  many  years,  and  the  re- 
sult is  doubtless  valuable.  After  some  years  have  gone 
by  he  hears  his  children  their  lessons,  and  the  daily  oft- 
repeated  screams  that  issue  from  the  study  during  the 
lesson  hours  tell  their  own  horrible  story  over  the  house. 
He  has  also  taken  to  collecting  a  hortus  siccus,  and 
through  the  interest  of  his  father  was  once  mentioned 
in  the  Saturday  Magazine  as  having  been  the  first  to  find 
a  plant,  whose  name  I  have  forgotten,  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Battersby.  This  number  of  the  Saturday  Maga- 
zine has  been  bound  in  red  morocco,  and  is  kept  upon 
the  drawing-room  table.  He  potters  about  his  garden; 
if  he  hears  a  hen  cackling  he  runs  and  tells  Christina, 
and  straightway  goes  hunting  for  the  egg. 

When  the  two  Miss  Allabys  came,  as  they  sometimes 
did,  to  stay  with  Christina,  they  said  the  life  led  by  their 
sister  and  brother-in-law  was  an  idyll.  Happy  indeed 
was  Christina  in  her  choice — for  that  she  had  had  a  choice 
was  a  fiction  which  soon  took  root  among  them — and 
happy  Theobald  in  his  Christina.  Somehow  or  other 
Christina  was  always  a  little  shy  of  cards  when  her  sis- 
ters were  staying  with  her,  though  at  other  times  she 
enjoyed  a  game  of  cribbage  or  a  rubber  of  whist  heart- 
ily enough,  but  her  sisters  knew  they  would  never  be 
asked  to  Battersby  again  if  they  were  to  refer  to  that 
little  matter,  and  on  the  whole  it  was  worth  their  while 
to  be  asked  to  Battersby.  If  Theobald's  temper  was 
rather  irritable  he  did  not  vent  it  upon  them. 

By  nature  reserved,  if  he  could  have  found  someone 
to  cook  his  dinner  for  him,  he  would  rather  have  lived 
in  a  desert  island  than  not.  In  his  heart  of  hearts  he 
held  with  Pope  that  "the  greatest  nuisance  to  mankind  is 
man"  or  words  to  that  effect — only  that  women,  with 


78  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

the  exception  perhaps  of  Christina,  were  worse.  Yet 
for  all  this,  when  visitors  called  he  put  a  better  face  on  it 
than  anyone  who  was  behind  the  scenes  would  have 
expected. 

He  was  quick  too  at  introducing  the  names  of  any 
literary  celebrities  whom  he  had  met  at  his  father's  house, 
and  soon  established  an  all-around  reputation  which  sat- 
isfied even  Christina  herself. 

Who  so  integer  vitce  scelerisque  purus,  it  was  asked, 
as  Mr.  Pontifex  of  Battersby?  Who  so  fit  to  be  con- 
sulted if  any  difficulty  about  parish  management  should 
arise?  Who  such  a  happy  mixture  of  the  sincere  unin- 
quiring  Christian  and  of  the  man  of  the  world?  For 
so  people  actually  called  him.  They  said  he  was  such  an 
admirable  man  of  business.  Certainly  if  he  had  said  he 
would  pay  a  sum  of  money  at  a  certain  time,  the  money 
would  be  forthcoming  on  the  appointed  day,  and  this  is 
saying  a  good  deal  for  any  man.  His  constitutional 
timidity  rendered  him  incapable  of  an  attempt  to  over- 
reach when  there  was  the  remotest  chance  of  opposition 
or  publicity,  and  his  correct  bearing  and  somewhat  stern 
expression  were  a  great  protection  to  him  against  being 
overreached.  He  never  talked  of  money,  and  invari- 
ably changed  the  subject  whenever  money  was  intro- 
duced. His  expression  of  unutterable  horror  at  all  kinds 
of  meanness  was  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  he  was  not 
mean  himself.  Besides,  he  had  no  business  transactions 
save  of  the  most  ordinary  butcher's  book  and  baker's 
book  description.  His  tastes — if  he  had  any — were,  as 
we  have  seen,  simple ;  he  had  £900  a  year  and  a  house ; 
the  neighbourhood  was  cheap,  and  for  some  time  he  had 
no  children  to  be  a  drag  upon  him.  Who  was  not  to 
be  envied,  and  if  envied  why  then  respected,  if  Theobald 
was  not  enviable? 

Yet  I  imagine  that  Christina  was  on  the  whole  happier 
than  her  husband.  She  had  not  to  go  and  visit  sick 
parishioners,  and  the  management  of  her  house  and  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  79 

keeping  of  her  accounts  afforded  as  much  occupation  as 
she  desired.  Her  principal  duty  was,  as  she  well  said, 
to  her  husband — to  love  him,  honour  him,  and  keep  him 
in  a  good  temper.  To  do  her  justice,  she  fulfilled  this 
duty  to  the  uttermost  of  her  power.  It  would  have  been 
better  perhaps  if  she  had  not  so  frequently  assured  her 
husband  that  he  was  the  best  and  wisest  of  mankind, 
for  no  one  in  his  little  world  ever  dreamed  of  telling  him 
anything  else,  and  it  was  not  long  before  he  ceased  to 
have  any  doubt  upon  the  matter.  As  for  his  temper, 
which  had  become  very  violent  at  times,  she  took  care 
to  humour  it  on  the  slightest  sign  of  an  approaching  out- 
break. She  had  early  found  that  this  was  much  the 
easiest  plan.  The  thunder  was  seldom  for  herself.  Long 
before  her  marriage  even  she  had  studied  his  little  ways, 
and  knew  how  to  add  fuel  to  the  fire  as  long  as  the  fire 
seemed  to  want  it,  and  then  to  damp  it  judiciously  down, 
making  as  little  smoke  as  possible. 

In  money  matters  she  was  scrupulousness  itself. 
Theobald  made  her  a  quarterly  allowance  for  her  dress, 
pocket  money  and  little  charities  and  presents.  In  these 
last  items  she  was  liberal  in  proportion  to  her  income; 
indeed  she  dressed  with  great  economy  and  gave  away 
whatever  was  over  in  presents  or  charity.  Oh,  what  a 
comfort  it  was  to  Theobald  to  reflect  that  he  had  a  wife 
on  whom  he  could  rely  never  to  cost  him  a  sixpence  of 
unauthorised  expenditure!  Letting  alone  her  absolute 
submission,  the  perfect  coincidence  of  her  opinion  with 
his  own  upon  every  subject  and  her  constant  assurances 
to  him  that  he  was  right  in  everything  which  he  took  it 
into  his  head  to  say  or  do,  what  a  tower  of  strength  to 
him  was  her  exactness  in  money  matters!  As  years 
went  by  he  became  as  fond  of  his  wife  as  it  was  in  his 
nature  to  be  of  any  living  thing,  and  applauded  himself 
for  having,  stuck  to  his  engagement — a  piece  of  virtue  of 
which  he  was  now  reaping  the  reward.  Even  when  Chris- 
tina did  outrun  her  quarterly  stipend  by  some  thirty 


8o  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

shillings  or  a  couple  of  pounds,  it  was  always  made  per- 
fectly clear  to  Theobald  how  the  deficiency  had  arisen — 
there  had  been  an  unusually  costly  evening  dress  bought 
which  was  to  last  a  long  time,  or  somebody's  unexpected 
wedding  had  necessitated  a  more  handsome  present  than 
the  quarter's  balance  would  quite  allow:  the  excess  of 
expenditure  was  always  repaid  in  the  following  quarter 
or  quarters  even  though  it  were  only  ten  shillings  at  a 
time. 

I  believe,  however,  that  after  they  had  been  married 
some  twenty  years,  Christina  had  somewhat  fallen  from 
her  original  perfection  as  regards  money.  She  had  got 
gradually  in  arrears  during  many  successive  quarters, 
till  she  had  contracted  a  chronic  loan,  a  sort  of  domestic 
national  debt,  amounting  to  between  seven  and  eight 
pounds.  Theobald  at  length  felt  that  a  remonstrance  had 
become  imperative,  and  took  advantage  of  his  silver  wed- 
ding day  to  inform  Christina  that  her  indebtedness  was 
cancelled,  and  at  the  same  time  to  beg  that  she  would  en- 
deavour henceforth  to  equalise  her  expenditure  and  her 
income.  She  burst  into  tears  of  love  and  gratitude,  as- 
sured him  that  he  was  the  best  and  most  generous  of 
men,  and  never  during  the  remainder  of  her  married  life 
was  she  a  single  shilling  behindhand. 

Christina  hated  change  of  all  sorts  no  less  cordially 
than  her  husband.  She  and  Theobald  had  nearly  every- 
thing in  this  world  that  they  could  wish  for ;  why,  then, 
should  people  desire  to  introduce  all  sorts  of  changes  of 
which  no  one  could  foresee  the  end?  Religion,  she  was 
deeply  convinced,  had  long  since  attained  its  final  devel- 
opment, nor  could  it  enter  into  the  heart  of  reasonable 
man  to  conceive  any  faith  more  perfect  than  was  incul- 
cated by  the  Church  of  England.  She  could  imagine  no 
position  more  honourable  than  that  of  a  clergyman's  wife 
unless  indeed  it  were  a  bishop's.  Considering  his  father's 
influence  it  was  not  at  all  impossible  that  Theobald  might 
be  a  bishop  some  day — and  then — then  would  occur  to 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  81 

her  that  one  little  flaw  in  the  practice  of  the  Church  of 
England — a  flaw  not  indeed  in  its  doctrine,  but  in  its  pol- 
icy, which  she  believed  on  the  whole  to  be  a  mistaken  one 
in  this  respect.  I  mean  the  fact  that  a  bishop's  wife  does 
not  take  the  rank  of  her  husband. 

This  had  been  the  doing  of  Elizabeth,  who  had  been  a 
bad  woman,  of  exceedingly  doubtful  moral  character,  and 
at  heart  a  Papist  to  the  last.  Perhaps  people  ought  to 
have  been  above  mere  considerations  of  worldly  dignity, 
but  the  world  was  as  it  was,  and  such  things  carried 
weight  with  them,  whether  they  ought  to  do  so  or  no. 
Her  influence  as  plain  Mrs.  Pontifex,  wife,  we  will  say, 
of  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  would  no  doubt  be  consid- 
erable. Such  a  character  as  hers  could  not  fail  to  carry 
weight  if  she  were  ever  in  a  sufficiently  conspicuous 
sphere  for  its  influence  to  be  widely  felt;  but  as  Lady 
Winchester — or  the  Bishopess — which  would  sound  quite 
nicely — who  could  doubt  that  her  power  for  good  would 
be  enhanced?  And  it  would  be  all  the  nicer  because  if 
she  had  a  daughter,  the  daughter  would  not  be  a  Bishop- 
ess  unless  indeed  she  were  to  marry  a  Bishop  too,  which 
would  not  be  likely. 

These  were  her  thoughts  upon  her  good  days ;  at  other 
times  she  would,  to  do  her  justice,  have  doubts  whether 
she  was  in  all  respects  as  spiritually  minded  as  she  ought 
to  be.  She  must  press  on,  press  on,  till  every  enemy  to 
her  salvation  was  surmounted  and  Satan  himself  lay 
bruised  under  her  feet.  It  occurred  to  her  on  one  of 
these  occasions  that  she  might  steal  a  march  over  some 
of  her  contemporaries  if  she  were  to  leave  off  eating 
black  puddings,  of  which  whenever  they  had  killed  a  pig 
she  had  hitherto  partaken  freely ;  and  if  she  were  also 
careful  that  no  fowls  were  served  at  her  table  which  had 
had  their  necks  wrung,  but  only  such  as  had  had  their 
throats  cut  and  been  allowed  to  bleed.  St.  Paul  and  the 
Church  of  Jerusalem  had  insisted  upon  it  as  necessary 
that  even  Gentile  converts  should  abstain  from  things 


82  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

strangled  and  from  blood,  and  they  had  joined  this  pro- 
hibition with  that  of  a  vice  about  the  abominable  nature 
of  which  there  could  be  no  question;  it  would  be  well 
therefore  to  abstain  in  future  and  see  whether  any  note- 
worthy spiritual  result  ensued.  She  did  abstain,  and  was 
certain  that  from  the  day  of  her  resolve  she  had  felt 
stronger,  purer  in  heart,  and  in  all  respects  more  spir- 
itually minded  than  she  had  ever  felt  hitherto.  Theobald 
did  not  lay  so  much  stress  on  this  as  she  did,  but  as  she 
settled  what  he  should  have  at  dinner  she  could  take  care 
that  he  got  no  strangled  fowls;  as  for  black  puddings, 
happily,  he  had  seen  them  made  when  he  was  a  boy,  and 
had  never  got  over  his  aversion  for  them.  She  wished 
the  matter  were  one  of  more  general  observance  than  it 
was;  this  was  just  a  case  in  which  as  Lady  Winchester 
she  might  have  been  able  to  do  what  as  plain  Mrs.  Ponti- 
fex  it  was  hopeless  even  to  attempt. 

And  thus  this  worthy  couple  jogged  on  from  month  to 
month  and  from  year  to  year.  The  reader,  if  he  has 
passed  middle  life  and  has  a  clerical  connection,  will 
probably  remember  scores  and  scores  of  rectors  and  rec- 
tors' wives  who  differed  in  no  material  respect  from 
Theobald  and  Christina.  Speaking  from  a  recollection 
and  experience  extending  over  nearly  eighty  years  from 
the  time  when  I  was  myself  a  child  in  the  nursery  of  a 
vicarage,  I  should  say  I  had  drawn  the  better  rather  than 
the  worse  side  of  the  life  of  an  English  country  parson 
of  some  fifty  years  ago.  I  admit,  however,  that  there 
are  no  such  people  to  be  found  nowadays.  A  more 
united  or,  on  the  whole,  happier,  couple  could  not  have 
been  found  in  England.  One  grief  only  overshadowed 
the  early  years  of  their  married  life :  I  mean  the  fact  that 
no  living  children  were  born  to  them. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  83 


CHAPTER  XVII 

IN  the  course  of  time  this  sorrow  was  removed.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  fifth  year  of  her  married  life  Christina 
was  safely  delivered  of  a  boy.  This  was  on  the  sixth  of 
September,  1835. 

Word  was  immediately  sent  to  old  Mr.  Pontifex,  who 
received  the  news  with  real  pleasure.  His  son  John's 
wife  had  borne  daughters  only,  and  he  was  seriously 
uneasy  lest  there  should  be  a  failure  in  the  male  line  of 
his  descendants.  The  good  news,  therefore,  was  doubly 
welcome,  and  caused  as  much  delight  at  Elmhurst  as  dis- 
may in  Woburn  Square,  where  the  John  Pontifexes  were 
then  living. 

Here,  indeed,  this  freak  of  fortune  was  felt  to  be  all 
the  more  cruel  on  account  of  the  impossibility  of  resent- 
ing it  openly ;  but  the  delighted  grandfather  cared  nothing 
for  what  the  John  Pontifexes  might  feel  or  not  feel ;  he 
had  wanted  a  grandson  and  he  had  got  a  grandson,  and 
this  should  be  enough  for  everybody;  and,  now  that  Mrs. 
Theobald  had  taken  to  good  ways,  she  might  bring  him 
more  grandsons,  which  would  be  desirable,  for  he  should 
not  feel  safe  with  fewer  than  three. 

He  rang  the  bell  for  the  butler. 

"Gelstrap,"  he  said  solemnly,  "I  want  to  go  down  into 
the  cellar." 

Then  Gelstrap  preceded  him  with  a  candle,  and  he 
went  into  the  inner  vault  where  he  kept  his  choicest  wines. 

He  passed  many  bins :  there  was  1803  Port,  1792  Im- 
perial Tokay,  1800  Claret,  1812  Sherry,  these  and  many 
others  were  passed,  but  it  was  not  for  them  that  the 
head  of  the  Pontifex  family  had  gone  down  into  his  in- 
ner cellar.  A  bin,  which  had  appeared  empty  until  the 
full  light  of  the  candle  had  been  brought  to  bear  upon  it, 
was  now  found  to  contain  a  single  pint  bottle.  This 
was  the  object  of  Mr.  Pontifex's  search. 


84  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Gelstrap  had  often  pondered  over  this  bottle.  It  had 
been  placed  there  by  Mr.  Pontifex  himself  about  a  dozen 
years  previously,  on  his  return  from  a  visit  to  his  friend 
the  celebrated  traveller,  Dr.  Jones — but  there  was  no  tab- 
let above  the  bin  which  might  give  a  clue  to  the  nature 
of  its  contents.  On  more  than  one  occasion  when  his 
master  had  gone  out  and  left  his  keys  accidentally  behind 
him,  as  he  sometimes  did,  Gelstrap  had  submitted  the 
bottle  to  all  the  tests  he  could  venture  upon,  but  it  was  so 
carefully  sealed  that  wisdom  remained  quite  shut  out 
from  that  entrance  at  which  he  would  have  welcomed 
her  most  gladly — and  indeed  from  all  other  entrances, 
for  he  could  make  out  nothing  at  all. 

And  now  the  mystery  was  to  be  solved.  But  alas!  it 
seemed  as  though  the  last  chance  of  securing  even  a  sip 
of  the  contents  was  to  be  removed  for  ever,  for  Mr. 
Pontifex  took  the  bottle  into  his  own  hands  and  held  it 
up  to  the  light  after  carefully  examining  the  seal.  He 
smiled  and  left  the  bin  with  the  bottle  in  his  hands. 

Then  came  a  catastrophe.  He  stumbled  over  an  empty 
hamper;  there  was  the  sound  of  a  fall — a  smash  of 
broken  glass,  and  in  an  instant  the  cellar  floor  was  cov- 
ered with  the  liquid  that  had  been  preserved  so  carefully 
for  so  many  years. 

With  his  usual  presence  of  mind  Mr.  Pontifex  gasped 
out  a  month's  warning  to  Gelstrap.  Then  he  got  up,  and 
stamped  as  Theobald  had  done  when  Christina  had 
wanted  not  to  order  his  dinner. 

"It's  water  from  the  Jordan,"  he  exclaimed  furiously, 
"which  I  have  been  saving  for  the  baptism  of  my  eldest 
grandson.  Damn  you,  Gelstrap,  how  dare  you  be  so  in- 
fernally careless  as  to  leave  that  hamper  littering  about 
the  cellar  ?" 

I  wonder  the  water  of  the  sacred  stream  did  not  stand 
upright  as  an  heap  upon  the  cellar  floor  and  rebuke  him. 
Gelstrap  told  the  other  servants  afterwards  that  his  mas- 
ter's language  had  made  his  backbone  curdle. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  85 

The  moment,  however,  that  he  heard  the  word  "water," 
he  saw  his  way  again,  and  flew  to  the  pantry.  Before  his 
master  had  well  noted  his  absence  he  returned  with  a 
little  sponge  and  a  basin,  and  had  begun  sopping  up  the 
waters  of  the  Jordan  as  though  they  had  been  a  common 
slop. 

"I'll  filter  it,  Sir,"  said  Gelstrap  meekly.  "It'll  come 
quite  clean." 

Mr.  Pontifex  saw  hope  in  this  suggestion,  which  was 
shortly  carried  out  by  the  help  of  a  piece  of  blotting 
paper  and  a  funnel,  under  his  own  eyes.  Eventually  it 
was  found  that  half  a  pint  was  saved,  and  this  was  held 
to  be  sufficient. 

Then  he  made  preparations  for  a  visit  to  Battersby. 
He  ordered  goodly  hampers  of  the  choicest  eatables,  he 
selected  a  goodly  hamper  of  choice  drinkables.  I  say 
choice  and  not  choicest,  for  although  in  his  first  exalta- 
tion he  had  selected  some  of  his  very  best  wine,  yet  on 
reflection  he  had  felt  that  there  was  moderation  in  all 
things,  and  as  he  was  parting  with  his  best  water  from 
the  Jordan,  he  would  only  send  some  of  his  second  best 
wine. 

Before  he  went  to  Battersby  he  stayed  a  day  or  two 
in  London,  which  he  now  seldom  did,  being  over  seventy 
years  old,  and  having  practically  retired  from  business. 
The  John  Pontifexes,  who  kept  a  sharp  eye  on  him,  dis- 
covered to  their  dismay  £hat  he  had  had  an  interview 
with  his  solicitors. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

FOR  the  first  time  in  his  life  Theobald  felt  that  he  had 
done  something  right,  and  could  look  forward  to  meeting 
his  father  without  alarm.  The  old  gentleman,  indeed, 
had  written  him  a  most  cordial  letter,  announcing  his  in- 
tention of  standing  godfather  to  the  boy — nay,  I  may  as 


86  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

well  give  it  in  full,  as  it  shows  the  writer  at  his  best.    It 
runs: 

"Dear  Theobald, — Your  letter  gave  me  very  sincere 
pleasure,  the  more  so  because  I  had  made  up  my  mind 
for  the  worst;  pray  accept  my  most  hearty  congratula- 
tions for  my  daughter-in-law  and  for  yourself. 

"I  have  long  preserved  a  phial  of  water  from  the  Jor- 
dan for  the  christening  of  my  first  grandson,  should  it 
please  God  to  grant  me  one.  It  was  given  me  by  my  old 
friend,  Dr.  Jones.  You  will  agree  with  me  that  though 
the  efficacy  of  the  sacrament  does  not  depend  upon  the 
source  of  the  baptismal  waters,  yet,  ceteris  paribus,  there 
is  a  sentiment  attaching  to  the  waters  of  the  Jordan 
which  should  not  be  despised.  Small  matters  like  this 
sometimes  influence  a  child's  whole  future  career. 

"I  shall  bring  my  own  cook,  and  have  told  him  to  get 
everything  ready  for  the  christening  dinner.  Ask  as 
many  of  your  best  neighbours  as  your  table  will  hold. 
By  the  way,  I  have  told  Lesueur  not  to  get  a  lobster — 
you  had  better  drive  over  yourself  and  get  one  from 
Saltness  (for  Battersby  was  only  fourteen  or  fifteen 
miles  from  the  sea  coast) ;  they  are  better  there,  at  least 
I  think  so,  than  anywhere  else  in  England. 

"I  have  put  your  boy  down  for  something  in  the  event 
of  his  attaining  the  age  of  twenty-one  years.  If  your 
brother  John  continues  to  have  nothing  but  girls  I  may 
do  more  later  on,  but  I  have  many  claims  upon  me,  and 
am  not  as  well  off  as  you  may  imagine. — Your  affection- 
ate father,  G.  PONTIFEX." 

A  few  days  afterwards  the  writer  of  the  above  letter 
made  his  appearance  in  a  fly  which  had  brought  him 
from  Gildenham  to  Battersby,  a  distance  of  fourteen 
miles.  There  was  Lesueur,  the  cook,  on  the  box  with  the 
driver,  and  as  many  hampers  as  the  fly  could  carry  were 
disposed  upon  the  roof  and  elsewhere.  Next  day  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  87 

John  Pontifexes  had  to  come,  and  Eliza  and  Maria,  as 
well  as  Alethea,  who,  by  her  own  special  request,  was 
godmother  to  the  boy,  for  Mr.  Pontifex  had  decided  that 
they  were  to  form  a  happy  family  party;  so  come  they 
all  must,  and  be  happy  they  all  must,  or  it  would  be  the 
worse  for  them.  Next  day  the  author  of  all  this  hubbub 
was  actually  christened.  Theobald  had  proposed  to  call 
him  George  after  old  Mr.  Pontifex,  but  strange  to  say, 
Mr.  Pontifex  overruled  him  in  favour  of  the  name  Er- 
nest. The  word  "earnest"  was  just  beginning  to  come 
into  fashion,  and  he  thought  the  possession  of  such  a 
name  might,  like  his  having  been  baptised  in  water  from 
the  Jordan,  have  a  permanent  effect  upon  the  boy's  char- 
acter, and  influence  him  for  good  during  the  more  critical 
periods  of  his  life. 

I  was  asked  to  be  his  second  godfather,  and  was  re- 
joiced to  have  an  opportunity  of  meeting  Alethea,  whom 
I  had  not  seen  for  some  few  years,  but  with  whom  I 
had  been  in  constant  correspondence.  She  and  I  had 
always  been  friends  from  the  time  we  had  played  to- 
gether as  children  onwards.  When  the  death  of  her 
grandfather  and  grandmother  severed  her  connection 
with  Paleham  my  intimacy  with  the  Pontifexes  was  kept 
up  by  my  having  been  at  school  and  college  with  Theo- 
bald, and  each  time  I  saw  her  I  admired  her  more  and 
more  as  the  best,  kindest,  wittiest,  most  lovable,  and,  to 
my  mind,  handsomest  woman  whom  I  had  ever  seen. 
None  of  the  Pontifexes  were  deficient  in  good  looks; 
they  were  a  well-grown,  shapely  family  enough,  but  Ale- 
thea was  the  flower  of  the  flock  even  as  regards  good 
looks,  while  in  respect  of  all  other  qualities  that  make  a 
woman  lovable,  it  seemed  as  though  the  stock  that  had 
been  intended  for  the  three  daughters,  and  would  have 
been  about  sufficient  for  them,  had  all  been  allotted  to 
herself,  her  sisters  getting  none,  and  she  all. 

It  is  impossible  for  me  to  explain  how  it  was  that  she 
and  I  never  married.  We  two  knew  exceedingly  well? 


88  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

and  that  must  suffice  for  the  reader.  There  was  the  most 
perfect  sympathy  and  understanding  between  us ;  we 
knew  that  neither  of  us  would  marry  anyone  else.  I 
had  asked  her  to  marry  me  a  dozen  times  over;  having 
said  this  much  I  will  say  no  more  upon  a  point  which  is 
in  no  way  necessary  for  the  development  of  my  story. 
For  the  last  few  years  there  had  been  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  our  meeting,  and  I  had  not  seen  her,  though,  as 
I  have  said,  keeping  up  a  close  correspondence  with  her. 
Naturally  I  was  overjoyed  to  meet  her  again;  she  was 
now  just  thirty  years  old,  but  I  thought  she  looked  hand- 
somer than  ever. 

Her  father,  of  course,  was  the  lion  of  the  party,  but 
seeing  that  we  were  all  meek  and  quite  willing  to  be 
eaten,  he  roared  to  us  rather  than  at  us.  It  was  a  fine 
sight  to  see  him  tucking  his  napkin  under  his  rosy  old 
gills,  and  letting  it  fall  over  his  capacious  waistcoat  while 
the  high  light  from  the  chandelier  danced  about  the  bump 
of  benevolence  on  his  bald  old  head  like  a  star  of  Beth- 
lehem. 

The  soup  was  real  turtle;  the  old  gentleman  was  evi- 
dently well  pleased  and  he  was  beginning  to  come  out. 
Gelstrap  stood  behind  his  master's  chair.  I  sat  next  Mrs. 
Theobald  on  her  left  hand,  and  was  thus  just  opposite 
her  father-in-law,  whom  I  had  every  opportunity  of  ob- 
serving. 

During  the  first  ten  minutes  or  so,  which  were  taken 
up  with  the  soup  and  the  bringing  in  of  the  fish,  I  should 
probably  have  thought,  if  I  had  not  long  since  made  up 
my  mind  about  him,  what  a  fine  old  man  he  was  and  how 
proud  his  children  should  be  of  him;  but  suddenly  as  he 
was  helping  himself  to  lobster  sauce,  he  flushed  crimson, 
a  look  of  extreme  vexation  suffused  his  face,  and  he 
darted  two  furtive  but  fiery  glances  to  the  two  ends  of 
the  table,  one  for  Theobald  and  one  for  Christina.  They, 
poor  simple  souls,  of  course  saw  that  something  was  ex- 
ceedingly wrong,  and  so  did  I,  but  I  couldn't  guess  what 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  89 

it  was  till  I  heard  the  old  man  hiss  in  Christina's  ear :  "It 
was  not  made  with  a  hen  lobster.  What's  the  use,"  he 
continued,  "of  my  calling  the  boy  Ernest,  and  getting  him 
christened  in  water  from  the  Jordan,  if  his  own  father 
does  not  know  a  cock  from  a  hen  lobster?" 

This  cut  me  too,  for  I  felt  that  till  that  moment  I  had 
not  so  much  as  known  that  there  were  cocks  and  hens 
among  lobsters,  but  had  vaguely  thought  that  in  the  mat- 
ter of  matrimony  they  were  even  as  the  angels  in  heaven, 
and  grew  up  almost  spontaneously  from  rocks  and  sea- 
weed. 

Before  the  next  course  was  over  Mr.  Pontifex  had  re- 
covered his  temper,  and  from  that  time  to  the  end  of  the 
evening  he  was  at  his  best.  He  told  us  all  about  the 
water  from  the  Jordan ;  how  it  had  been  brought  by  Dr. 
Jones  along  with  some  stone  jars  of  water  from  the 
Rhine,  the  Rhone,  the  Elbe  and  the  Danube,  and  what 
trouble  he  had  had  with  them  at  the  Custom  Houses,  and 
how  the  intention  had  been  to  make  punch  with  waters 
from  all  the  greatest  rivers  in  Europe ;  and  how  he,  Mr. 
Pontifex,  had  saved  the  Jordan  water  from  going  into 
the  bowl,  etc.,  etc.  "No,  no,  no,"  he  continued,  "it 
wouldn't  have  done  at  all,  you  know ;  very  profane  idea ; 
so  we  each  took  a  pint  bottle  of  it  home  with  us,  and  the 
punch  was  much  better  without  it.  I  had  a-  narrow  es- 
cape with  mine,  though,  the  other  day ;  I  fell  over  a  ham- 
per in  the  cellar,  when  I  was  getting  it  up  to  bring  to 
Battersby,  and  if  I  had  not  taken  the  greatest  care  the 
bottle  would  certainly  have  been  broken,  but  I  saved  it." 
And  Gelstrap  was  standing  behind  his  chair  all  the  time ! 

Nothing  more  happened  to  ruffle  Mr.  Pontifex,  so  we 
had  a  delightful  evening,  which  has  often  recurred  to  me 
while  watching  the  after  career  of  my  godson. 

I  called  a  day  or  two  afterwards  and  found  Mr.  Ponti- 
fex still  at  Battersby,  laid  up  with  one  of  those  attacks 
of  liver  and  depression  to  which  he  was  becoming  more 
and  more  subject.  I  stayed  to  luncheon.  The  old  gen- 


90  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

tleman  was  cross  and  very  difficult ;  he  could  eat  nothing 
— had  no  appetite  at  all.  Christina  tried  to  coax  him 
with  a  little  bit  of  the  fleshy  part  of  a  mutton  chop. 
"How  in  the  name  of  reason  can  I  be  asked  to  eat  a  mut- 
ton chop?"  he  exclaimed  angrily;  "you  forget,  my  dear 
Christina,  that  you  have  to  deal  with  a  stomach  that  is 
totally  disorganised,"  and  he  pushed  the  plate  from  him, 
pouting  and  frowning  like  a  naughty  old  child.  Writing 
as  I  do  by  the  light  of  a  later  knowledge,  I  suppose  I 
should  have  seen  nothing  in  this  but  the  world's  growing 
pains,  the  disturbance  inseparable  from  transition  in  hu- 
man things.  I  suppose  in  reality  not  a  leaf  goes  yellow 
in  autumn  without  ceasing  to  care  about  its  sap  and 
making  the  parent  tree  very  uncomfortable  by  long 
growling  and  grumbling — but  surely  nature  might  find 
some  less  irritating  way  of  carrying  on  business  if  she 
would  give  her  mind  to  it.  Why  should  the  generations 
overlap  one  another  at  all  ?  Why  cannot  we  be  buried  as 
eggs  in  neat  little  cells  with  ten  or  twenty  thousand 
pounds  each  wrapped  round  us  in  Bank  of  England  notes, 
and  wake  up,  as  the  sphex  wasp  does,  to  find  that  its  papa 
and  mamma  have  not  only  left  ample  provision  at  its 
elbow,  but  have  been  eaten  by  sparrows  some  weeks  be- 
fore it  began  to  live  consciously  on  its  own  account? 

About  a  year  and  a  half  afterwards  the  tables  were 
turned  on  Battersby — for  Mrs.  John  Pontifex  was  safely 
delivered  of  a  boy.  A  year  or  so  later  still,  George  Pon- 
tifex was  himself  struck  down  suddenly  by  a  fit  of  pa- 
ralysis, much  as  his  mother  had  been,  but  he  did  not  see 
the  years  of  his  mother.  When  his  will  was  opened,  it 
was  found  that  an  original  bequest  of  £20,000  to  Theo- 
bald himself  (over  and  above  the  sum  that  had  been  set- 
tled upon  him  and  Christina  at  the  time  of  his  marriage) 
had  been  cut  down  to  £17,500  when  Mr.  Pontifex  left 
"something"  to  Ernest.  The  "something"  proved  to  be 
£2500,  which  was  to  accumulate  in  the  hands  of  trustees. 
The  rest  of  the  property  went  to  John  Pontifex,  except 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  91 

that  each  of  the  daughters  was  left  with  about  £15,000 
over  and  above  £5000  a  piece  which  they  inherited  from 
their  mother. 

Theobald's  father  then  had  told  him  the  truth  but  not 
the  whole  truth.  Nevertheless,  what  right  had  Theobald 
to  complain?  Certainly  it  was  rather  hard  to  make  him 
think  that  he  and  his  were  to  be  gainers,  and  get  the  hon- 
our and  glory  of  the  bequest,  when  all  the  time  the  money 
was  virtually  being  taken  out  of  Theobald's  own  pocket. 
On  the  other  hand  the  father  doubtless  argued  that  he 
had  never  told  Theobald  he  was  to  have  anything  at  all ; 
he  had  a  full  right  to  do  what  he  liked  with  his  own 
money;  if  Theobald  chose  to  indulge  in  unwarrantable 
expectations  that  was  no  affair  of  his ;  as  it  was  he  was 
providing  for  him  liberally;  and  if  he  did  take  £2500  of 
Theobald's  share  he  was  still  leaving  it  to  Theobald's 
son,  which,  of  course,  was  much  the  same  thing  in  the 
end. 

No  one  can  deny  that  the  testator  had  strict  right  upon 
his  side ;  nevertheless  the  reader  will  agree  with  me  that 
Theobald  and  Christina  might  not  have  considered  the 
christening  dinner  so  great  a  success  if  all  the  facts  had 
been  before  them.  Mr.  Pontifex  had  during  his  own 
life-time  set  up  a  monument  in  Elmhurst  Church  to  the 
memory  of  his  wife  (a  slab  with  urns  and  cherubs  like 
illegitimate  children  of  King  George  the  Fourth,  and  all 
the  rest  of  it),  and  had  left  space  for  his  own  epitaph 
underneath  that  of  his  wife.  I  do  not  know  whether  it 
was  written  by  one  of  his  children,  or  whether  they  got 
some  friend  to  write  it  for  them.  I  do  not  believe  that 
any  satire  was  intended.  I  believe  that  it  was  the  inten- 
tion to  convey  that  nothing  short  of  the  Day  of  Judge- 
ment could  give  anyone  an  idea  how  good  a  man  Mr. 
Pontifex  had  been,  but  at  first  I  found  it  hard  to  think 
that  it  was  free  from  guile. 

The  epitaph  begins  by  giving  dates  of  birth  and  death ; 
then  sets  out  that  the  deceased  was  for  many  years  head 


92  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

of  the  firm  of  Fairlie  and  Pontifex,  and  also  resident  in 
the  parish  of  Elmhurst.  There  is  not  a  syllable  of  either 
praise  or  dispraise.  The  last  lines  run  as  follows : — 

HE   NOW  LIES  AWAITING  A   JOYFUL  RESURRECTION 

AT   THE   LAST    DAY. 

WHAT   MANNER  OF   MAN   HE  WAS 

THAT  DAY  WILL  DISCOVER. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THIS  much,  however,  we  may  say  in  the  meantime,  that 
having  lived  to  be  nearly  seventy-three  years  old  and  died 
rich  he  must  have  been  in  very  fair  harmony  with  his 
surroundings.  I  have  heard  it  said  sometimes  that  such 

1  and  such  a  person's  life  was  a  lie :  but  no  man's  life  can 
be  a  very  bad  lie;  as  long  as  it  continues  at  all  it  is  at 
worst  nine-tenths  of  it  true. 

Mr.  Pontifex's  life  not  only  continued  a  long  time,  but 
was  prosperous  right  up  to  the  end.  Is  not  this  enough  ? 
Being  in  this  world  is  it  not  our  most  obvious  business  to 
make  the  most  of  it — to  observe  what  things  do  bona  fide 
tend  to  long  life  and  comfort,  and  to  act  accordingly? 

'  All  animals,  except  man,  know  that  the  principal  business 
of  life  is  to  enjoy  it — and  they  do  enjoy  it  as  much  as 
man  and  other  circumstances  will  allow.  He^Jhas^  spent 

Jhisjifje^e^t_whojiasjen joyed  it  most ;  God  will  take  care 

<  that  we  do  not  enjoy  it  any  more  than  is  good  for  us. 
If  Mr.  Pontifex  is  to  be  blamed  it  is  for  not  having  eaten 
and  drunk  less  and  thus  suffered  less  from  his  liver,  and 
lived  perhaps  a  year  or  two  longer. 

Goodness  is  naught  unless  it  tends  towards  old  age  and 
sufficiency  of  means.  I  speak  broadly  and  exceptis  ex- 
cipiendis.  So  the  psalmist  says,  "The  righteous  shall  not 
lack  anything  that  is  good."  Either  this  is  mere  poetical 
license,  or  it  follows  that  he  who  lacks  anything  that  is 
good  is  not  righteous ;  there  is  a  presumption  also  that  he 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  93 

who  has  passed  a  long  life  without  lacking  anything  that 
is  good  has  himself  also  been  good  enough  for  practical 
purposes. 

Mr.  Pontifex  never  lacked  anything  he  much  cared 
about.  True,  he  might  have  been  happier  than  he  was  if 
he  had  cared  about  things  which  he  did  not  care  for,  but 
the  gist  of  this  lies  in  the  "if  he  had  cared."  We  have 
all  sinned  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  making  our- 
selves as  comfortable  as  we  easily  might  have  done,  but 
in  this  particular  case  Mr.  Pontifex  did  not  care,  and 
would  not  have  gained  much  by  getting  what  he  did  not 
want. 

There  is  no  casting  of  swine's  meat  before  men  worse 
than  that  which  -would  flatter  virtue  as  though  her  true 
origin  were  not  good  enough  for  her,  but  she  must  have 
a  lineage,  deduced  as  it  were  by  spiritual  heralds,  from 
some  stock  with  which  she  has  nothing  to  do.  Virtue's 
true  lineage  is  older  and  more  respectable  than  any  that 
can  be  invented  for  her.  She  springs  from  man's  experi- 
ence concerning  his  own  well-being — and  this,  though  not 
infallible,  is  still  the  least  fallible  thing  we  have.  A  sys- 
tem which  cannot  stand  without  a  better  foundation  than 
this  must  have  something  so  unstable  within  itself  that  it 
will  topple  over  on  whatever  pedestal  we  place  it. 
?'  The  world  has  long  ago  settled  that  morality  and  virtue 
are  what  bring  men  peace  at  the  last.  "Be  virtuous,"  says 
the  copy-book,  "and  you  will  be  happy."  Surely  if  a 
reputed  virtue  fails  often  in  this  respect  it  is  only  an 
insidious  form  of  vice,  and  if  a  reputed  vice  brings  no 
very  serious  mischief  on  a  man's  later  years  it  is  not  so 
bad  a  vice  as  it  is  said  to  be.  Unfortunately^  though  we 
are  all  of  a  mind  about  the  main  opinion  that  virtue  is 
what  tends  to  happiness,  and  vice  what  ends  in  sorrow, 
we  are  not  so  unanimous  about  details — that  is  to  say  as 
to  whether  any  given  course,  such,  we  will  say,  as  smok- 
ing, has  a  tendency  to  happiness  or  the  reverse. 

I  submit  it  as  the  result  of  my  own  poor  observation, 


94  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

that  a  good  deal  of  unkindness  and  selfishness  on  the  part 
of  parents  towards  children  is  not  generally  followed  by 
ill  consequences  to  the  parents  themselves.  They  may 
cast  a  gloom  over  their  children's  lives  for  many  years 
without  having  to  suffer  anything  that  will  hurt  them.  I 
should  say,  then,  that  it  shows  no  great  moral  obliquity 
on  the  part  of  parents  if  within  certain  limits  they  make 
their  children's  lives  a  burden  to  them. 

Granted  that  Mr.  Pontifex's  was  not  a  very  exalted 
character,  ordinary  men  are  not  required  to  have  very 
exalted  characters.  It  is  enough  if  we  are  of  the  same 
moral  and  mental  stature  as  the  "main"  or  "mean"  part 
of  men — that  is  to  say  as  the  average. 

It  is  involved  in  the  very  essence  of  things  that  rich 
men  who  die  old  shall  have  been  mean.  The  greatest 
and  wisest  of  mankind  will  be  almost  always  found  to 
be  the  meanest — the  ones  who  have  kept  the  "mean"  best 
between  excess  either  of  virtue  or  vice.  They  hardly  ever 
have  been  prosperous  if  they  have  not  done  this,  and, 
considering  how  many  miscarry  altogether,  it  is  no  small 
feather  in  a  man's  cap  if  he  has  been  no  worse  than  his 
neighbours.  Homer  tells  us  about  some  one  who 
made  it  his  business  <uev  apwreueiv  Kai  v-n-etpoxov  f/j,fj.evai 
oXXwj' — always  to  excel  and  to  stand  higher  than 
other  people.  What  an  uncompanionable,  disagreeable 
person  he  must  have  been!  Homer's  heroes  generally 
came  to  a  bad  end,  and  I  doubt  not  that  this  gentleman, 
whoever  he  was,  did  so  sooner  or  later. 

A  very  high  standard,  again,  involves  the  possession 
of  rare  virtues,  and  rare  virtues  are  like  rare  plants  or 
animals,  things  that  have  not  been  able  to  hold  their  own 
in  the  world.  A  virtue  to  be  serviceable  must,  like  gold, 
be  alloyed  with  some  commoner  but  more  durable  metal. 

People  divide  off  vice  and  virtue  as  though  they  were 
two  things,  neither  of  which  had  with  it  anything  of  the 
other.    This  is  not  so.    There  is  no  useful  virtue  which^/ 
has  not  some  alloy  of  vice,  and  hardly  any  vice,  if  any, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  95 

which  carries  not  with  it  a  little  dash  of  virtue;  virtue 
and  vice  are  like  life  and  death,  or  mind  and  matter — 
things  which  cannot  exist  without  being  qualified  by  their 
opposite.  The  most  absolute  life  contains  death,  and  the 
corpse  is  still  in  many  respects  living ;  so  also  it  has  been 
said,  "If  thou,  Lord,  wilt  be  extreme  to  mark  what  is 
done  amiss,"  which  shows  that  even  the  highest  ideal  we 
can  conceive  will  yet  admit  so  much  compromise  with 
vice  as  shall  countenance  the  poor  abuses  of  the  time,  if 
they  are  not  too  outrageous.  That  vice  pays  homage  to 
virtue  is  notorious;  we  call  this  hypocrisy;  there  should 
be  a  word  found  for  the  homage  which  virtue  not  un- 
frequently  pays,  or  at  any  rate  would  be  wise  in  paying, 
to  vice. 

I  grant  that  some  men  will  find  happiness  in  having 
what  we  all  feel  to  be  a  higher  moral  standard  than  oth- 
ers. If  they  go  in  for  this,  however,  they  must  be  content 
with  virtue  as  her  own  reward,  and  not  grumble  if  they 
find  lofty  Quixotism  an  expensive  luxury,  whose  re- 
wards belong  to  a  kingdom  that  is  not  of  this  world. 
They  must  not  wonder  if  they  cut  a  poor  figure  in  trying 
to  make  the  most  of  both  worlds.  Disbelieve  as  we  may 
the  details  of  the  accounts  which  record  the  growth  of 
the  Christian  religion,  yet  a  great  part  of  Christian  teach- 
ing will  remain  as  true  as  though  we  accepted  the  details. 
We  cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon ;  strait  is  the  way 
and  narrow  is  the  gate  which  leads  to  what  those  who 
live  by  faith  hold  to  be  best  worth  having,  and  there  is  no 
way  of  saying  this  better  than  the  Bible  has  done.  It  is 
well  there  should  be  some  who  think  thus,  as  it  is  well 
there  should  be  speculators  in  commerce,  who  will  often 
burn  their  fingers — but  it  is  not  well  that  the  majority 
should  leave  the  "mean"  and  beaten  path. 

For  most  men,  and  most  circumstances,  pleasure — 
tangible  material  prosperity  in  this  world — is  the  safest 
test  of  virtue.  Progress  has  ever  been  through  the  pleas- 
ures rather  than  through  the  extreme  sharp  virtues,  and 


96  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

the  most  virtuous  have  leaned  to  excess  rather  than  to 
asceticism.  To  use  a  commercial  metaphor,  competition 
is  so  keen,  and  the  margin  of  profits  has  been  cut  down 
so  closely  that  virtue  cannot  afford  to  throw  any  bona 
fide  chance  away,  and  must  base  her  action  rather  on  the 
actual  money  ing  out  of  conduct  than  on  a  flattering  pros- 
pectus. She  will  not  therefore  neglect — as  some  do  who 
are  prudent  and  economical  enough  in  other  matters — 
the  important  factor  of  our  chance  of  escaping  detection, 
or  at  any  rate  of  our  dying  first.  A  reasonable  virtue 
will  give  this  chance  its  due  value,  neither  more  nor  less. 
Pleasure,  after  all,  is  a  safer  guide  than  either  right  or 
duty.  For  hard  as  it  is  to  know  what  gives  us  pleasure, 
right  and  duty  are  often  still  harder  to  distinguish  and, 
if  we  go  wrong  with  them,  will  lead  us  into  just  as  sorry 
a  plight  as  a  mistaken  opinion  concerning  pleasure. 
When  men  burn  their  fingers  through  following  after 
pleasure  they  find  out  their  mistake  and  get  to  see  where 
they  have  gone  wrong  more  easily  than  when  they  have 
!  burnt  them  through  following  after  a  fancied  duty,  or  a 
fancied  idea  concerning  right  virtue.  The  devil,  in  fact, 
iwhen  he  dresses  himself  in  angel's  clothes,  can  only  be 
I  detected  by  experts  of  exceptional  skill,  and  so  often  does 
!  he  adopt  this  disguise  that  it  is  hardly  safe  to  be  seen 
talking  to  an  angel  at  all,  and  prudent  people  will  follow 
after  pleasure  as  a  more  homely  but  more  respectable 
and  on  the  whole  much  more  trustworthy  guide. 
/  Returning  to  Mr.  Pontifex,  over  and  above  his  having 
lived  long  and  prosperously,  he  left  numerous  offspring, 
lo  all  of  whom  he  communicated  not  only  his  physical 
and  mental  characteristics,  with  no  more  than  the  usual 
amount  of  modification,  but  also  no  small  share  of  char- 
acteristics which  are  less  easily  transmitted — I  mean  his 
pecuniary  characteristics.  It  may  be  said  that  he  ac- 
quired these  by  sitting  still  and  letting  money  run,  as 
it  were,  right  up  against  him,  but  against  how  many  does 
not  money  run  who  do  not  take  it  when  it  does,  or  who, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  97 

even  if  they  hold  it  for  a  little  while,  cannot  so  incorpo- 
rate it  with  themselves  that  it  shall  descend  through  them 
to  their  offspring?  Mr.  Pontifex  did  this.  He  kept 
what  he  may  be  said  to  have  made,  and  money  is  like  a 
reputation  for  ability — more  easily  made  than  kept. 

Take  him,  then,  for  all  in  all,  I  am  not  inclined  to  be 
so  severe  upon  him  as  my  father  was.  Judge  him  accord- 
ing to  any  very  lofty  standard,  and  he  is  nowhere.  Judge 
him  according  to  a  fair  average  standard,  and  there  is 
not  much  fault  to  be  found  with  him.  I  have  said  what 
I  have  said  in  the  foregoing  chapter  once  for  all,  and 
shall  not  break  my  thread  to  repeat  it.  It  should  go 
without  saying  in  modification  of  the  verdict  which  the 
reader  may  be  inclined  to  pass  too  hastily,  not  only  upon 
Mr.  George  Pontifex,  but  also  upon  Theobald  and  Chris- 
tina. And  now  I  will  continue  my  story. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  birth  of  his  son  opened  Theobald's  eyes  to  a  good 
deal  which  he  had  but  faintly  realised  hitherto.  He  had 
had  no  idea  how  great  a  nuisance  a  baby  was.  Babies 
come  into  the  world  so  suddenly  at  the  end,  and  upset 
everything  so  terribly  when  they  do  come:  why  cannot 
they  steal  in  upon  us  with  less  of  a  shock  to  the  domestic 
system?  His  wife,  too,  did  not  recover  rapidly  from  her 
confinement ;  she  remained  an  invalid  for  months ;  here 
was  another  nuisance  and  an  expensive  one,  which  inter- 
fered with  the  amount  which  Theobald  liked  to  put  by  out 
of  his  income  against,  as  he  said,  a  rainy  day,  or  to  make 
provision  for  his  family  if  he  should  have  one.  Now  he 
was  getting  a  family,  so  that  it  became  all  the  more  neces- 
sary to  put  money  by,  and  here  was  the  baby  hindering 
him.  Theorists  may  say  what  they  like  about  a  man's 
children  being  a  continuation  of  his  own  identity,  but  it 
will  generally  be  found  that  those  who  talk  in  this  way 


98  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

have  no  children  of  their  own.  Practical  family  men 
know  better. 

About  twelve  months  after  the  birth  of  Ernest  there 
came  a  second,  also  a  boy,  who  was  christened  Joseph, 
and  in  less  than  twelve  months  afterwards,  a  girl,  to 
whom  was  given  the  name  of  Charlotte.  A  few  months 
before  this  girl  was  born  Christina  paid  a  visit  to  the 
John  Pontifexes  in  London,  and,  knowing  her  condi- 
tion, passed  a  good  deal  of  time  at  the  Royal  Academy 
exhibition  looking  at  the  types  of  female  beauty  por- 
trayed by  the  Academicians,  for  she  had  made  up  her 
mind  that  the  child  this  time  was  to  be  a  girl.  Alethea 
warned  her  not  to  do  this,  but  she  persisted,  and  cer- 
tainly the  child  turned  out  plain,  but  whether  the  pictures 
caused  this  or  no,  I  cannot  say. 

Theobald  had  never  liked  children.  He  had  always 
got  away  from  them  as  soon  as  he  could,  and  so  had 
they  from  him;  oh,  why,  he  was  inclined  to  ask  himself, 
could  not  children  be  born  into  the  world  grown  up? 
If  Christina  could  have  given  birth  to  a  few  full-grown 
clergymen  in  priest's  orders — of  moderate  views,  but  in- 
clining rather  to  Evangelicism,  with  comfortable  livings 
and  in  all  respects  facsimiles  of  Theobald  himself — 
why,  there  might  have  been  more  sense  in  it;  or  if 
people  could  buy  ready-made  children  at  a  shop  of  what- 
ever age  and  sex  they  liked,  instead  of  always  having 
to  make  them  at  home  and  to  begin  at  the  beginning 
with  them — that  might  do  better,  but  as  it  was  he  did 
not  like  it.  He  felt  as  he  had  felt  when  he  had  been 
required  to  come  and  be  married  to  Christina — that  he 
had  been  going  on  for  a  long  time  quite  nicely,  and  would 
much  rather  continue  things  on  their  present  footing. 
In  the  matter  of  getting  married  he  had  been  obliged  to 
pretend  he  liked  it;  but  times  were  changed,  and  if  he 
did  not  like  a  thing  now,  he  could  find  a  hundred  unex- 
ceptionable ways  of  making  his  dislike  apparent. 

It  might  have  been  better  if  Theobald  in  his  younger 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh  99 

days  had  kicked  more  against  his  father:  the  fact  that 
he  had  not  done  so  encouraged  him  to  expect  the  most 
implicit  obedience  from  his  own  children.  He  could 
trust  himself,  he  said  (and  so  did  Christina),  to  be  more 
lenient  than  perhaps  his  father  had  been  to  himself; 
his  danger,  he  said  (and  so  again  did  Christina),  would 
be  rather  in  the  direction  of  being  too  indulgent;  he 
must  be  on  his  guard  against  this,  for  no  duty  could  be 
more  important  than  that  of  teaching  a  child  to  obey  its 
parents  in  all  things. 

He  had  read  not  long  since  of  an  Eastern  traveller, 
who,  while  exploring  somewhere  in  the  more  remote 
parts  of  Arabia  and  Asia  Minor,  had  come  upon  a 
remarkably  hardy,  sober,  industrious  little  Christian  com- 
munity— all  of  them  in  the  best  of  health — who  had 
turned  out  to  be  the  actual  living  descendants  of  Jona- 
dab,  the  son  of  Rechab;  and  two  men  in  European  cos- 
tume, indeed,  but  speaking  English  with  a  broken  accent, 
and  by  their  colour  evidently  Oriental,  had  come  begging 
to  Battersby  soon  afterwards,  and  represented  themselves 
as  belonging  to  this  people ;  they  had  said  they  were  col- 
lecting funds  to  promote  the  conversion  of  their  fellow 
tribesmen  to  the  English  branch  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion. True,  they  turned  out  to  be  impostors,  for  when 
he  gave  them  a  pound  and  Christina  five  shillings  from 
her  private  purse,  they  went  and  got  drunk  with  it  in 
the  next  village  but  one  to  Battersby;  still,  this  did  not 
invalidate  the  story  of  the  Eastern  traveller.  Then  there 
were  the  Romans — whose  greatness  was  probably  due 
to  the  wholesome  authority  exercised  by  the  head  of  a 
family  over  all  its  members.  Some  Romans  had  even 
killed  their  children ;  this  was  going  too  far,  but  then 
the  Romans  were  not  Christians,  and  knew  no  better. 

The  practical  outcome  of  the  foregoing  was  a  convic- 
tion in  Theobald's  mind,  and  if  in  his,  then  in  Chris- 
tina's, that  it  was  their  duty  to  begin  training  up  their 
children  in  the  way  they  should  go,  even  from  their 


ioo         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

earliest  infancy.  The  first  signs  of  self-will  must  be 
carefully  looked  for,  and  plucked  up  by  the  roots  at  once 
before  they  had  time  to  grow.  Theobald  picked  up  this 
numb  serpent  of  a  metaphor  and  cherished  it  in  his 
bosom. 

Before  Ernest  could  well  crawl  he  was  taught  to  kneel ; 
before  he  could  well  speak  he  was  taught  to  lisp  the 
Lord's  prayer,  and  the  general  confession.  How  was  it 
possible  that  these  things  could  be  taught  too  early?  If 
his  attention  flagged  or  his  memory  failed  him,  here  was 
an  ill  weed  which  would  grow  apace,  unless  it  were 
plucked  out  immediately,  and  the  only  way  to  pluck  it 
out  was  to  whip  him,  or  shut  him  up  in  a  cupboard,  or 
dock  him  of  some  of  the  small  pleasures  of  childhood. 
Before  he  was  three  years  old  he  could  read  and,  after  a 
fashion,  write.  Before  he  was  four  he  was  learning 
Latin,  and  could  do  rule  of  three  sums. 

As  for  the  child  himself,  he  was  naturally  of  an  even 
temper ;  he  doted  upon  his  nurse,  on  kittens  and  puppies, 
and  on  all  things  that  would  do  him  the  kindness  of 
allowing  him  to  be  fond  of  them.  He  was  fond  of  his 
mother,  too,  but  as  regards  his  father,  he  has  told  me  in 
later  life  he  could  remember  no  feeling  but  fear  and 
shrinking.  Christina  did  not  remonstrate  with  Theo- 
bald concerning  the  severity  of  the  tasks  imposed  upon 
their  boy,  nor  yet  as  to  the  continual  whippings  that 
were  found  necessary  at  lesson  times.  Indeed,  when 
during  any  absence  of  Theobald's  the  lessons  were  en- 
trusted to  her,  she  found  to  her  sorrow  that  it  was  the 
only  thing  to  do,  and  she  did  it  no  less  effectually  than 
Theobald  himself ;  nevertheless  she  was  fond  of  her  boy, 
which  Theobald  never  was,  and  it  was  long  before  she 
could  destroy  all  affection  for  herself  in  the  mind  of 
her  first-born.  But  she  persevered. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         101 


CHAPTER  XXI 

STRANGE!  for  she  believed  she  doted  upon  him,  and  cer- 
tainly she  loved  him  better  than  either  of  her  other 
children.  Her  version  of  the  matter  was  that  there  had 
never  yet  been  two  parents  so  self-denying  and  devoted 
to  the  highest  welfare  of  their  children  as  Theobald 
and  herself.  For  Ernest,  a  very  great  future — she  was 
certain  of  it — was  in  store.  This  made  severity  all  the 
more  necessary,  so  that  from  the  first  he  might  have 
been  kept  pure  from  every  taint  of  evil.  She  could  not 
allow  herself  the  scope  for  castle  building  which,  we 
read,  was  indulged  in  by  every  Jewish  matron  before 
the  appearance  of  the  Messiah,  for  the  Messiah  had 
now  come,  but  there  was  to  be  a  millennium  shortly, 
certainly  not  later  than  1866,  when  Ernest  would  be  just 
about  the  right  age  for  it,  and  a  modern  Elias  would 
be  wanted  to  herald  its  approach.  Heaven  would  bear 
her  witness  that  she  had  never  shrunk  from  the  idea  of 
martyrdom  for  herself  and  Theobald,  nor  would  she 
avoid  it  for  her  boy,  if  his  life  was  required  of  her  in 
her  Redeemer's  service.  Oh,  no!  If  God  told  her  to 
offer  up  her  first-born,  as  He  had  told  Abraham,  she 
would  take  him  up  to  Pigbury  Beacon  and  plunge  the — 
no,  that  she  could  not  do,  but  it  would  be  unnecessary — • 
some  one  else  might  do  that.  It  was  not  for  nothing 
that  Ernest  had  been  baptised  in  water  from  the  Jordan. 
It  had  not  been  her  doing,  nor  yet  Theobald's.  They 
had  not  sought  it.  When  water  from  the  sacred  stream 
was  wanted  for  a  sacred  infant,  the  channel  had  been 
found  through  which  it  was  to  flow  from  far  Palestine 
over  land  and  sea  to  the  door  of  the  house  where  the 
child  was  lying.  Why,  it  was  a  miracle !  It  was !  It 
was !  She  saw  it  all  now.  The  Jordan  had  left  its  bed 
and  flowed  into  her  own  house.  It  was  idle  to  say  that 
this  was  not  a  miracle.  No  miracle  was  effected  without 


102         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

means  of  some  kind;  the  difference  between  the  faith- 
ful and  the  unbeliever  consisted  in  the  very  fact  that  the 
former  could  see  a  miracle  where  the  latter  could  not. 
The  Jews  could  see  no  miracle  even  in  the  raising  of 
Lazarus  and  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand.  The  John 
Pontifexes  would  see  no  miracle  in  this  matter  of  the 
water  from  the  Jordan.  The  essence  of  a  miracle  lay 
not  in  the  fact  that  means  had  been  dispensed  with,  but 
in  the  adoption  of  means  to  a  great  end  that  had  not 
been  available  without  interference;  and  no  one  would 
suppose  that  Dr.  Jones  would  have  brought  the  water 
unless  he  had  been  directed.  She  would  tell  this  to 
Theobald,  and  get  him  to  see  it  in  the  .  .  .  and  yet 
perhaps  it  would  be  better  not.  The  insight  of  women 
upon  matters  of  this  sort  was  deeper  and  more  unerring 
than. that  of  men.  It  was  a  woman  and  not  a  man  who 
had  been  filled  most  completely  with  the  whole  fulness 
of  the  Deity.  But  why  had  they  not  treasured  up  the 
water  after  it  was  used?  It  ought  never,  never  to  have 
been  thrown  away,  but  it  had  been.  Perhaps,  however, 
this  was  for  the  best  too — they  might  have  been  tempted 
to  set  too  much  store  by  it,  and  it  might  have  become 
a  source  of  spiritual  danger  to  them — perhaps  even  of 
spiritual  pride,  the  very  sin  of  all  others  which  she  most 
abhorred.  As  for  the  channel  through  which  the  Jordan 
had  flowed  to  Battersby,  that  mattered  not  more  than 
the  earth  through  which  the  river  ran  in  Palestine  itself. 
Dr.  Jones  was  certainly  worldly — very  worldly;  so,  she 
regretted  to  feel,  had  been  her  father-in-law,  though  in 
a  less  degree;  spiritual,  at  heart,  doubtless,  and  becoming 
more  and  more  spiritual  continually  as  he  grew  older, 
still  he  was  tainted  with  the  world,  till  a  very  few  hours, 
probably,  before  his  death,  whereas  she  and  Theobald 
had  given  up  all  for  Christ's  sake.  They  were  not 
worldly.  At  least  Theobald  was  not.  She  had  been,  but 
she  was  sure  she  had  grown  in  grace  since  she  had  left 
off  eating  things  strangled  and  blood — this  was  as  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         103 

washing  in  Jordan  as  against  Abana  and  Pharpar,  rivers 
of  Damascus.  Her  boy  should  never  touch  a  strangled 
fowl  nor  a  black  pudding — that,  at  any  rate,  she  could 
see  to.  He  should  have  a  coral  from  the  neighbourhood 
of  Joppa — there  were  coral  insects  on  those  coasts,  so 
that  the  thing  could  easily  be  done  with  a  little  energy; 
she  would  write  to  Dr.  Jones  about  it,  etc.  And  so  on  for 
hours  together  day  after  day  for  years.  Truly,  Mrs 
Theobald  loved  her  child  according  to  her  lights  with 
an  exceeding  great  fondness,  but  the  dreams  she  had 
dreamed  in  sleep  were  sober  realities  in  comparison  with 
those  she  indulged  in  while  awake. 

When  Ernest  was  in  his  second  year,  Theobald,  as 
I  have  already  said,  began  to  teach  him  to  read.  He 
began  to  whip  him  two  days  after  he  had  begun  to  teach 
him. 

"It  was  painful,"  as  he  said  to  Christina,  but  it  was  the 
only  thing  to  do  and  it  was  done.  The  child  was  puny, 
white  and  sickly,  so  they  sent  continually  for  the  doctor 
who  dosed  him  with  calomel  and  James's  powder.  All 
was  done  in  love,  anxiety,  timidity,  stupidity,  and  im- 
patience. They  were  stupid  in  little  things ;  and  he  \ 
that  is  stupid  in  little  will  be  stupid  also  in  much., 

Presently  old  Mr.  Pontifex  died,  and  then  came  the 
revelation  of  the  little  alteration  he  had  made  in  his 
will  simultaneously  with  his  bequest  to  Ernest.  It  was 
rather  hard  to  bear,  especially  as  there  was  no  way  of 
conveying  a  bit  of  their  minds  to  the  testator  now  that 
he  could  no  longer  hurt  them.  As  regards  the  boy 
himself  anyone  must  see  that  the  bequest  would  be  an 
unmitigated  misfortune  to  him.  To  leave  him  a  small 
independence  was  perhaps  the  greatest  injury  which 
one  could  inflict  upon  a  young  man.  It  would  cripple 
his  energies,  and  deaden  his  desire  for  active  employ- 
ment. Many  a  youth  was  led  into  evil  courses  by  the 
knowledge  that  on  arriving  at  majority  he  would  come 
into  a  few  thousands.  They  might  surely  have  been 


104         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

trusted  to  have  their  boy's  interests  at  heart,  and  must 
be  better  judges  of  those  interests  than  he,  at  twenty-one, 
could  be  expected  to  be:  besides  if  Jonadab,  the  son  of 
Rechab's  father — or  perhaps  it  might  be  simpler  under 
the  circumstances  to  say  Rechab  at  once — if  Rechab, 
then,  had  left  handsome  legacies  to  his  grandchildren — 
why  Jonadab  might  not  have  found  those  children  so 
easy  to  deal  with,  etc.  "My  dear,"  said  Theobald,  after 
having  discussed  the  matter  with  Christina  for  the  twen- 
tieth time,  "my  dear,  the  only  thing  to  guide  and  console 
us  under  misfortunes  of  this  kind  is  to  take  refuge  in 
practical  work.  I  will  go  and  pay  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Thomp- 
son." 

On  those  days  Mrs.  Thompson  would  be  told  that  her 
sins  were  all  washed  white,  etc.,  a  little  sooner  and  a  little 
more  peremptorily  than  on  others. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

I  USED  to  stay  at  Battersby  for  a  day  or  two  sometimes, 
while  my  godson  and  his  brother  and  sister  were  chil- 
dren. I  hardly  know  why  I  went,  for  Theobald  and  I 
grew  more  and  more  apart,  but  one  gets  into  grooves 
sometimes,  and  the  supposed  friendship  between  myself 
and  the  Pontifexes  continued  to  exist,  though  it  was 
now  little  more  than  rudimentary.  My  godson  pleased 
me  more  than  either  of  the  other  children,  but  he  had 
not  much  of  the  buoyancy  of  childhood,  and  was  more 
like  a  puny,  sallow  little  old  man  than  I  liked.  The  young 
people,  however,  were  very  ready  to  be  friendly. 

I  remember  Ernest  and  his  brother  hovered  round 
me  on  the  first  day  of  one  of  these  visits  with  their 
hands  full  of  fading  flowers,  which  they  at  length  prof- 
fered me.  On  this  I  did  what  I  suppose  was  expected :  I 
inquired  if  there  was  a  shop  near  where  they  could  buy 
sweeties.  They  said  there  was,  so  I  felt  in  my  pockets, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         105 

but  only  succeeded  in  finding  two  pence  halfpenny  in 
small  money.  This  I  gave  them,  and  the  youngsters, 
aged  four  and  three,  toddled  off  alone.  Ere  long  they 
returned,  and  Ernest  said,  "We  can't  get  sweeties  for 
all  this  money"  (I  felt  rebuked,  but  no  rebuke  was 
intended)  ;  "we  can  get  sweeties  for  this"  (showing  a 
penny),  "and  for  this"  (showing  another  penny),  "but 
we  cannot  get  them  for  all  this,"  and  he  added  the 
halfpenny  to  the  two  pence.  I  suppose  they  had  wanted 
a  twopenny  cake,  or  something  like  that.  I  was  amused, 
and  left  them  to  solve  the  difficulty  their  own  way,  being 
anxious  to  see  what  they  would  do. 

Presently  Ernest  said,  "May  we  give  you  back  this" 
(showing  the  halfpenny)  "and  not  give  you  back  this 
and  this?"  (showing  the  pence).  I  assented,  and  they 
gave  a  sigh  of  relief  and  went  on  their  way  rejoicing. 
A  few  more  presents  of  pence  and  small  toys  completed 
the  conquest,  and  they  began  to  take  me  into  their  con- 
fidence. 

They  told  me  a  good  deal  which  I  am  afraid  I  ought 
not  to  have  listened  to.  They  said  that  if  grandpapa  had 
lived  longer  he  would  most  likely  have  been  made  a  Lord, 
and  that  then  papa  would  have  been  the  Honourable  and 
Reverend,  but  that  grandpapa  was  now  in  heaven  singing 
beautiful  hymns  with  Grandmamma  Allaby  to  Jesus 
Christ,  who  was  very  fond  of  them;  and  that  when 
Ernest  was  ill,  his  mamma  had  told  him  he  need  not  be 
afraid  of  dying,  for  he  would  go  straight  to  heaven, 
if  he  would  only  be  sorry  for  having  done  his  lessons 
so  badly  and  vexed  his  dear  papa,  and  if  he  would 
promise  never,  never  to  vex  him  any  more;  and  that 
when  he  got  to  heaven  Grandpapa  and  Grandmamma 
Allaby  would  meet  him,  and  he  would  be  always  with 
them,  and  they  would  be  very  good  to  him  and  teach 
him  to  sing  ever  such  beautiful  hymns,  more  beautiful 
by  far  than  those  which  he  was  now  so  fond  of,  etc., 
etc. ;  but  he  did  not  wish  to  die,  and  was  glad  when  he 


io6         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

got  better,  for  there  were  no  kittens  in  heaven,  and  he 
did  not  think  there  were  cowslips  to  make  cowslip  tea 
with. 

Their  mother  was  plainly  disappointed  in  them.  "My 
children  are  none  of  them  geniuses,  Mr.  Overton,"  she 
said  to  me  at  breakfast  one  morning.  "They  have  fair 
abilities,  and,  thanks  to  Theobald's  tuition,  they  are 
forward  for  their  years,  but  they  have  nothing  like 
genius :  genius  is  a  thing  apart  from  this,  is  it  not  ?" 

Of  course  I  said  it  was  "a  thing  quite  apart  from 
this,"  but  if  my  thoughts  had  been  laid  bare,  they  would 
have  appeared  as  "Give  me  my  coffee  immediately, 
ma'am,  and  don't  talk  nonsense."  I  have  no  idea  what 
genius  is,  but  so  far  as  I  can  form  any  conception  about 
it,  I  should  say  it  was  a  stupid  word  which  cannot  be 
too  soon  abandoned  to  scientific  and  literary  claqueurs. 

I  do  not  know  exactly  what  Christina  expected,  but  I 
should  imagine  it  was  something  like  this :  "My  children 
ought  to  be  all  geniuses,  because  they  are  mine  and 
Theobald's,  and  it  is  naughty  of  them  not  to  be;  but, 
of  course,  they  cannot  be  so  good  and  clever  as  Theo- 
bald and  I  were,  and  if  they  show  signs  of  being  so  it 
will  be  naughty  of  them.  Happily,  however,  they  are 
not  this,  and  yet  it  is  very  dreadful  that  they  are  not. 
As  for  genius — hoity-toity,  indeed — why,  a  genius  should 
turn  intellectual  somersaults  as  soon  as  it  is  born,  and 
none  of  my  children  have  yet  been  able  to  get  into  the 
newspapers.  I  will  not  have  children  of  mine  give  them- 
selves airs — it  is  enough  for  them  that  Theobald  and  I 
should  do  so." 

She  did  not  know,  poor  woman,  that  the  true  great- 
ness wears  an  invisible  cloak,  under  cover  of  which  it 
goes  in  and  out  among  men  without  being  suspected;  if 
its  cloak  does  not  conceal  it  from  itself  always,  and 
from  all  others  for  many  years,  its  greatness  will  ere 
long  shrink  to  very  ordinary  dimensions.  What,  then,  it 
may  be  asked,  is  the  good  of  being  great?  The  answer 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          107 

is  that  you  may  understand  greatness  better  in  others, 
whether  alive  or  dead,  and  choose  better  company  from 
these  and  enjoy  and  understand  that  company  better 
when  you  have  chosen  it — also  that  you  may  be  able  to 
give  pleasure  to  the  best  people  and  live  in  the  lives  of 
those  who  are  yet  unborn.  This,  one  would  think,  was 
substantial  gain  enough  for  greatness  without  its  wanting 
to  ride  rough-shod  over  us,  even  when  disguised  as 
humility. 

I  was  there  on  a  Sunday,  and  observed  the  rigour  with 
which  the  young  people  were  taught  to  observe  the 
Sabbath;  they  might  not  cut  out  things,  nor  use  their 
paintbox  on  a  Sunday,  and  this  they  thought  rather  hard, 
because  their  cousins  the  John  Pontifexes  might  do  these 
things.  Their  cousins  might  play  with  their  toy  train 
on  Sunday,  but  though  they  had  promised  that  they 
would  run  none  but  Sunday  trains,  all  traffic  had  been 
prohibited.  One  treat  only  was  allowed  them — on  Sun- 
day evenings  they  might  choose  their  own  hymns. 

In  the  course  of  the  evening  they  came  into  the  draw- 
ing-room, and,  as  an  especial  treat,  were  to  sing  some  of 
their  hymns  to  me,  instead  of  saying  them,  so  that  I 
might  hear  how  nicely  they  sang.  Ernest  was  to  choose 
the  first  hymn,  and  he  chose  one  about  some  people  who 
were  to  come  to  the  sunset  tree.  I  am  no  botanist,  and 
do  not  know  what  kind  of  tree  a  sunset  tree  is,  but  the 
words  began,  "Come,  come,  come;  come  to  the  sunset 
tree,  for  the  day  is  past  and  gone."  The  tune  was  rather 
pretty  and  had  taken  Ernest's  fancy,  for  he  was  un- 
usually fond  of  music  and  had  a  sweet  little  child's 
voice  which  he  liked  using. 

He  was,  however,  very  late  in  being  able  to  sound  a 
hard  "c"  or  "k,"  and,  instead  of  saying  "Come,"  he  said 
"Turn,  turn,  turn." 

"Ernest,"  said  Theobald,  from  the  armchair  in  front 
of  the  fire,  where  he  was  sitting  with  his  hands  folded 
before  him,  "don't  you  think  it  would  be  very  nice  if 


io8         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

you  were  to  say  'come'  like  other  people,  instead  of 
'turn'?" 

"I  do  say  turn,"  replied  Ernest,  meaning  that  he  had 
said  "come." 

Theobald  was  always  in  a  bad  temper  on  Sunday 
evening.  Whether  it  is  that  they  are  as  much  bored 
with  the  day  as  their  neighbours,  or  whether  they  are 
tired,  or  whatever  the  cause  may  be,  clergymen  are 
seldom  at  their  best  on  Sunday  evening;  I  had  already 
seen  signs  that  evening  that  my  host  was  cross,  and  was 
a  little  nervous  at  hearing  Ernest  say  so  promptly,  "I  do 
say  turn,"  when  his  papa  had  said  he  did  not  say  it  as 
he  should. 

Theobald  noticed  the  fact  that  he  was  being  contra- 
dicted in  a  moment.  He  got  up  from  his  armchair  and 
went  to  the  piano. 

"No,  Ernest,  you  don't,"  he  said,  "you  say  nothing  of 
the  kind,  you  say  'turn/  not  'come.'  Now  say  'come' 
after  me,  as  I  do." 

"Turn,"  said  Ernest,  at  once;  "is  that  better?"  I  have 
no  doubt  he  thought  it  was,  but  it  was  not. 

"Now,  Ernest,  you  are  not  taking  pains :  you  are  not 
trying  as  you  ought  to  do.  It  is  high  time  you  learned 
to  say  'come';  why,  Joey  can  say  'come,'  can't  you, 
Joey?" 

"Yeth,  I  can,"  replied  Joey,  and  he  said  something 
which  was  not  far  off  "come." 

"There,  Ernest,  do  you  hear  that?  There's  no  diffi- 
culty about  it,  nor  shadow  of  difficulty.  Now,  take  your 
own  time,  think  about  it,  and  say  'come'  after  me." 

The  boy  remained  silent  a  few  seconds  and  then  said 
"turn"  again. 

I  laughed,  but  Theobald  turned  to  me  impatiently  and 
said,  "Please  do  not  laugh,  Overton;  it  will  make  the 
boy  think  it  does  not  matter,  and  it  matters  a  great  deal ;" 
then  turning  to  Ernest  he  said,  "Now,  Ernest,  I  will  give 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         109 

you  one  more  chance,  and  if  you  don't  say  'come/  I 
shall  know  that  you  are  self-willed  and  naughty." 

He  looked  very  angry,  and  a  shade  came  over  Ernest's 
face,  like  that  which  comes  upon  the  face  of  a  puppy 
when  it  is  being  scolded  without  understanding  why. 
The  child  saw  well  what  was  coming  now,  was  fright- 
ened, and,  of  course,  said  "turn"  once  more. 

"Very  well,  Ernest,"  said  his  father,  catching  him 
angrily  by  the  shoulder.  "I  have  done  my  best  to  save 
you,  but  if  you  will  have  it  so,  you  will,"  and  he  lugged 
the  little  wretch,  crying  by  anticipation,  out  of  the  room. 
A  few  minutes  more  and  we  could  hear  screams  coming 
from  the  dining-room,  across  the  hall  which  separated 
the  drawing-room  from  the  dining-room,  and  knew  that 
poor  Ernest  was  being  beaten. 

"I  have  sent  him  up  to  bed,"  said  Theobald,  as  he 
returned  to  the  drawing-room,  "and  now,  Christina,  I 
think  we  will  have  the  servants  in  to  prayers,"  and  he 
rang  the  bell  for  them,  red-handed  as  he  was. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  man-servant  William  came  and  set  the  chairs  for 
the  maids,  and  presently  they  filed  in.  First  Christina's 
maid,  then  the  cook,  then  the  housemaid,  then  William, 
and  then  the  coachman.  I  sat  opposite  them,  and 
watched  their  faces  as  Theobald  read  a  chapter  from 
the  Bible.  They  were  nice  people,  but  more  absolute 
vacancy  I  never  saw  upon  the  countenances  of  human 
beings. 

Theobald  began  by  reading  a  few  verses  from  the  Old 
Testament,  according  to  some  system  of  his  own.  On 
this  occasion  the  passage  came  from  the  fifteenth  chap- 
ter of  Numbers :  it  had  no  particular  bearing  that  I 
could  see  upon  anything  which  was  going  on  just  then, 


no         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

but   the   spirit    which   breathed   throughout   the   whole 
seemed  to  me  to  be  so  like  that  of  Theobald  himself,  that 
I  could  understand  better  after  hearing  it,  how  he  came 
to  think  as  he  thought,  and  act  as  he  acted. 
The  verses  are  as  follows — 

"But  the  soul  that  doeth  aught  presumptuously,  whether  he 
be  born  in  the  land  or  a  stranger,  the  same  reproacheth  the  Lord ; 
and  that  soul  shall  be  cut  off  from  among  his  people. 

"Because  he  hath  despised  the  word  of  the  Lord,  and  hath 
broken  His  commandments,  that  soul  shall  be  utterly  cut  off;  his 
iniquity  shall  be  upon  him. 

"And  while  the  children  of  Israel  were  in  the  wilderness  they 
found  a  man  that  gathered  sticks  upon  the  Sabbath  day. 

"And  they  that  found  him  gathering  sticks  brought  him  unto 
Moses  and  Aaron,  and  unto  all  the  congregation. 

"And  they  put  him  in  ward  because  it  was  not  declared  what 
should  be  done  to  him. 

"And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  the  man  shall  be  surely  put  to 
death ;  all  the  congregation  shall  stone  him  with  stones  without 
the  camp. 

"And  all  the  congregation  brought  him  without  the  camp,  and 
stoned  him  with  stones,  and  he  died;  as  the  Lord  commanded 
Moses. 

"And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses,  saying, 

"Speak  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  and  bid  them  that  they 
make  them  fringes  in  the  borders  of  their  garments  throughout 
their  generations,  and  that  they  put  upon  the  fringe  of  the  bor- 
ders a  ribband  of  blue. 

"And  it  shall  be  unto  you  for  a  fringe,  that  ye  may  look  upon 
it  and  remember  all  the  commandments  of  the  Lord,  and  do  them, 
and  that  ye  seek  not  after  your  own  heart  and  your  own  eyes. 

"That  ye  may  remember  and  do  all  my  commandments  and  be 
holy  unto  your  God. 

"I  am  the  Lord  your  God  which  brought  you  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt,  to  be  your  God :  I  am  the  Lord  your  God." 

My  thoughts  wandered  while  Theobald  was  reading 
the  above,  and  reverted  to  a  little  matter  which  I  had 
observed  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon. 

It  happened  that  some  years  previously,  a  swarm  of 
bees  had  taken  up  their  abode  in  the  roof  of  the  house 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         in 

under  the  slates,  and  had  multiplied  so  that  the  drawing- 
room  was  a  good  deal  frequented  by  these  bees  during 
the  summer,  when  the  windows  were  open.  The  draw- 
ing-room paper  was  of  a  pattern  which  consisted  of 
bunches  of  red  and  white  roses,  and  I  saw  several  bees 
at  different  times  fly  up  to  these  bunches  and  try  them, 
under  the  impression  that  they  were  real  flowers ;  having 
tried  one  bunch,  they  tried  the  next,  and  the  next,  and 
the  next,  till  they  reached  the  one  that  was  nearest  the 
ceiling,  then  they  went  down  bunch  by  bunch  as  they 
had  ascended,  till  they  were  stopped  by  the  back  of  the 
sofa;  on  this  they  ascended  bunch  by  bunch  to  the 
ceiling  again;  and  so  on,  and  so  on  till  I  was  tired  of 
watching  them.  As  I  thought  of  the  family  prayers 
being  repeated  night  and  morning,  week  by  week,  month 
by  month,  and  year  by  year,  I  could  not  help  thinking 
how  like  it  was  to  the  way  in  which  the  bees  went  up  the 
wall  and  down  the  wall,  bunch  by  bunch,  without  ever 
suspecting  that  so  many  of  the  associated  ideas  could  be 
present,  and  yet  the  main  idea  be  wanting  hopelessly,  and 
for  ever. 

When  Theobald  had  finished  reading  we  all  knelt 
down  and  the  Carlo  Dolci  and  the  Sassoferrato  looked 
down  upon  a  sea  of  upturned  backs,  as  we  buried  our 
faces  in  our  chairs.  I  noted  that  Theobald  prayed  that 
we  might  be  made  "truly  honest  and  conscientious"  in 
all  our  dealings,  and  smiled  at  the  introduction  of  the 
"truly."  Then  my  thoughts  ran  back  to  the  bees  and  I 
reflected  that  after  all  it  was  perhaps  as  well,  at  any  rate 
for  Theobald,  that  our  prayers  were  seldom  marked  by 
any  very  encouraging  degree  of  response,  for  if  I  had 
thought  there  was  the  slightest  chance  of  my  being  heard 
I  should  have  prayed  that  some  one  might  ere  long  treat 
him  as  he  had  treated  Ernest. 

Then  my  thoughts  wandered  on  to  those  calculations 
which  people  make  about  waste  of  time  and  how  much 
one  can  get  done  if  one  gives  ten  minutes  a  day  to  it,  and 


H2         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

I  was"  thinking  what  improper  suggestion  I  could  make 
in  connection  with  this  and  the  time  spent  on  family 
prayers  which  should  at  the  same  time  be  just  tolerable, 
when  I  heard  Theobald  beginning,  "The  grace  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  and  in  a  few  seconds  the  ceremony 
was  over,  and  the  servants  filed  out  again  as  they  had 
filed  in. 

As  soon  as  they  had  left  the  drawing-room,  Christina, 
who  was  a  little  ashamed  of  the  transaction  to  which  I 
had  been  a  witness,  imprudently  returned  to  it,  and 
began  to  justify  it,  saying  that  it  cut  her  to  the  heart, 
and  that  it  cut  Theobald  to  the  heart  and  a  good  deal 
more,  but  that  "it  was  the  only  thing  to  be  done." 

I  received  this  as  coldly  as  I  decently  could,  and  by 
my  silence  during  the  rest  of  the  evening  showed  that 
I  disapproved  of  what  I  had  seen. 

Next  day  I  was  to  go  back  to  London,  but  before  I 
went  I  said  I  should  like  to  take  some  new-laid  eggs 
back  with  me,  so  Theobald  took  me  to  the  house  of  a 
labourer  in  the  village  who  lived  a  stone's  throw  from 
the  Rectory  as  being  likely  to  supply  me  with  them. 
Ernest,  for  some  reason  or  other,  was  allowed  to  come 
too.  I  think  the  hens  had  begun  to  sit,  but  at  any  rate 
eggs  were  scarce,  and  the  cottager's  wife  could  not  find 
me  more  than  seven  or  eight,  which  we  proceeded  to 
wrap  up  in  separate  pieces  of  paper  so  that  I  might  take 
them  to  town  safely. 

This  operation  was  carried  on  upon  the  ground  in 
front  of  the  cottage  door,  and  while  we  were  in  the 
midst  of  it  the  cottager's  little  boy,  a  lad  much  about 
Ernest's  age,  trod  upon  one  of  the  eggs  that  was  wrapped 
up  in  paper  and  broke  it. 

"There  now,  Jack,"  said  his  mother,  "see  what  you've 
done,  you've  broken  a  nice  egg  and  cost  me  a  penny — • 
here,  Emma,"  she  added,  calling  her  daughter,  "take  the 
child  away,  there's  a  dear." 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          113 

Emma  came  at  once,  and  walked  off  with  the  young- 
ster, taking  him  out  of  harm's  way. 

"Papa,"  said  Ernest,  after  we  had  left  the  house, 
"why  didn't  Mrs.  Heaton  whip  Jack  when  he  trod  on 
the  egg?" 

I  was  spiteful  enough  to  give  Theobald  a  grim  smile 
which  said  as  plainly  as  words  could  have  done  that  I 
thought  Ernest  had  hit  him  rather  hard. 

Theobald  coloured  and  looked  angry.  "I  dare  say," 
he  said  quickly,  "that  his  mother  will  whip  him  now  that 
we  are  gone." 

I  was  not  going  to  have  this  and  said  I  did  not  believe 
it,  and  so  the  matter  dropped,  but  Theobald  did  not 
forget  it,  and  my  visits  to  Battersby  were  henceforth  less 
frequent. 

On  our  return  to  the  house  we  found  the  postman 
had  arrived  and  had  brought  a  letter  appointing  Theo- 
bald to  a  rural  deanery  which  had  lately  fallen  vacant 
by  the  death  of  one  of  the  neighbouring  clergy  who  had 
held  the  office  for  many  years.  The  bishop  wrote  to 
Theobald  most  warmly,  and  assured  him  that  he  valued 
him  as  among  the  most  hard-working  and  devoted  of  his 
parochial  clergy.  Christina,  of  course,  was  delighted,  and 
gave  me  to  understand  that  it  was  only  an  instalment  of 
the  much  higher  dignities  which  were  in  store  for  Theo- 
bald when  his  merits  were  more  widely  known. 

I  did  not  then  foresee  how  closely  my  godson's  life 
and  mine  were  in  after  years  to  be  bound  up  together; 
if  I  had,  I  should  doubtless  have  looked  upon  him  with 
different  eyes  and  noted  much  to  which  I  paid  no  atten- 
tion at  the  time.  As  it  was,  I  was  glad  to  get  away  from 
him,  for  I  could  do  nothing  for  him,  or  chose  to  say 
that  I  could  not,  and  the  sight  of  so  much  suffering  was 
painful  to  me.  A  man  should  not  only  have  his  own 
way  as  far  as  possible,  but  he  should  only  consort  with 
things  that  are  getting  their  own  way  so  far  that  they 


H4         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

are  at  any  rate  comfortable.  Unless  for  short  times 
under  exceptional  circumstances,  he  should  not  even  see 
things  that  have  been  stunted  or  starved,  much  less 
should  he  eat  meat  that  has  been  vexed  by  having  been 
over-driven  or  underfed,  or  afflicted  with  any  disease; 
nor  should  he  touch  vegetables  that  have  not  been  well 
grown.  For  all  these  things  cross  a  man ;  whatever  a 
man  comes  in  contact  with  in  any  way  forms  a  cross 
with  him  which  will  leave  him  better  or  worse,  and  the 
better  things  he  is  crossec^with  the  more  likely  he  is  to 
live  long  and  happily.  All  things  must  be  crossed  a 
little  or  they  would  cease  to  live — but  holy  things,  such 
for  example  as  Giovanni  Bellini's  saints,  have  been 
crossed  with  nothing  but  what  is  good  of  its  kind. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  storm  which  I  have  described  in  the  previous  chap- 
ter was  a  sample  of  those  that  occurred  daily  for  many 
years.  No  matter  how  clear  the  sky,  it  was  always  liable 
to  cloud  over  now  in  one  quarter  now  in  another,  and 
the  thunder  and  lightning  were  upon  the  young  people 
before  they  knew  where  they  were. 

"And  then,  you  know,"  said  Ernest  to  me,  when  I 
asked  him  not  long  since  to  give  me  more  of  his  childish 
reminiscences  for  the  benefit  of  my  story,  "we  used  to 
learn  Mrs.  Barbauld's  hymns;  they  were  in  prose,  and 
there  was  one  about  the  lion  which  began,  'Come,  and  I 
will  show  you  what  is  strong.  The  lion  is  strong ;  when 
he  raiseth  himself  from  his  lair,  when  he  shaketh  his 
mane,  when  the  voice  of  his  roaring  is  heard  the  cattle 
of  the  field  fly,  and  the  beasts  of  the  desert  hide  them- 
selves, for  he  is  very  terrible.  I  used  to  say  this  to  Joey 
and  Charlotte  about  my  father  himself  when  I  got  a 
little  older,  but  they  were  always  didactic,  and  said  it 
was  naughty  of  me. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          115 

"One  great  reason  why  clergymen's  households  are 
generally  unhappy  is  because  the  clergyman  is  so  much 
at  home  or  close  about  the  house.  The  doctor  is  out 
visiting  patients  half  his  time :  the  lawyer  and  the  mer- 
chant have  offices  away  from  home,  but  the  clergyman 
has  no  official  place  of  business  which  shall  ensure  his 
being  away  from  home  for  many  hours  together  at  stated 
times.  Our  great  days  were  when  my  father  went  for 
a  day's  shopping  to  Gildenham.  We  were  some  miles 
from  this  place,  and  commissions  used  to  accumulate  on 
my  father's  list  till  he  would  make  a  day  of  it  and  go 
and  do  the  lot.  As  soon  as  his  back  was  turned  the 
air  felt  lighter;  as  soon  as  the  hall  door  opened  to  let 
him  in  again,  the  law  with  its  all-reaching  'touch  not, 
taste  not,  handle  not'  was  upon  us  again.  The  worst  of 
it  was  that  I  could  never  trust  Joey  and  Charlotte ;  they 
would  go  a  good  way  with  me  and  then  turn  back,  or 
even  the  whole  way  and  then  their  consciences  would 
compel  them  to  tell  papa  and  mamma.  They  liked  run- 
ning with  the  hare  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  their  instinct 
was  towards  the  hounds. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  he  continued,  "that  the  family  is  a 
survival  of  the  principle  which  is  more  logically  em- 
bodied in  the  compound  animal — and  the  compound 
animal  is  a  form  of  life  which  has  been  found  incom- 
patible with  high  development.  I  would  do  with  the 
family  among  mankind  what  nature  has  done  with  the 
compound  animal,  and  confine  it  to  the  lower  and  less 
progressive  races.  Certainly  there  is  no  inherent  love 
for  the  family  system  on  the  part  of  nature  herself. 
Poll  the  forms  of  life  and  you  will  find  it  in  a  ridicu- 
lously small  minority.  The  fishes  know  it  not,  and  they 
get  along  quite  nicely.  The  ants  and  the  bees,  who  far 
outnumber  man,  sting  their  fathers  to  death  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  are  given  to  the  atrocious  mutilation  of 
nine-tenths  of  the  offspring  committed  to  their  charge, 
yet  where  shall  we  find  communities  more  universally 


n6         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

respected?  Take  the  cuckoo  again — is  there  any  bird 
which  we  like  better?" 

I  saw  he  was  running  off  from  his  own  reminiscences 
and  tried  to  bring  him  back  to  them,  but  it  was  no  use. 

"What  a  fool,"  he  said,  "a  man  is  to  remember  any- 
thing that  happened  more  than  a  week  ago  unless  it  was 
pleasant,  or  unless  he  wants  to  make  some  use  of  it. 

"Sensible  people  get  the  greater  part  of  their  own 
dying  done  during  their  own  lifetime.  A  man  at  five  and 
thirty  should  no  more  regret  not  having  had  a  happier 
childhood  than  he  should  regret  not  having  been  born  a 
prince  of  the  blood.  He  might  be  happier  if  he  had  been 
more  fortunate  in  childhood,  but,  for  aught  he  knows,  if 
he  had,  something  else  might  have  happened  which  might 
have  killed  him  long  ago.  If  I  had  to  be  born  again 
I  would  be  born  at  Battersby  of  the  same  father  and 
mother  as  before,  and  I  would  not  alter  anything  that 
has  ever  happened  to  me." 

The  most  amusing  incident  that  I  can  remember  about 
his  childhood  was  that  when  he  was  about  seven  years 
old  he  told  me  he  was  going  to  have  a  natural  child. 
I  asked  him  his  reasons  for  thinking  this,  and  he  ex- 
plained that  papa  and  mamma  had  always  told  him  that 
nobody  had  children  till  they  were  married,  and  as  long 
as  he  had  believed  this  of  course  he  had  had  no  idea  of 
having  a  child  till  he  was  grown  up;  but  not  long  since 
he  had  been  reading  Mrs.  Markham's  history  of  England 
and  had  come  upon  the  words,  "John  of  Gaunt  had 
several  natural  children" ;  he  had  therefore  asked  his 
governess  what  a  natural  child  was — were  not  all  chil- 
dren natural? 

"Oh,  my  dear,"  said  she,  "a  natural  child  is  a  child  a 
person  has  before  he  is  married."  On  this  it  seemed  to 
follow  logically  that  if  John  of  Gaunt  had  had  children 
before  he  was  married,  he,  Ernest  Pontifex,  might  have 
them  also,  and  he  would  be  obliged  to  me  if  I  would  tell 
him  what  he  had  better  do  under  the  circumstances. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         117 

I  enquired  how  long  ago  he  had  made  this  discovery. 
He  said  about  a  fortnight,  and  he  did  not  know  where 
to  look  for  the  child,  for  it  might  come  at  any  moment. 
"You  know,"  he  said,  "babies  come  so  suddenly;  one 
goes  to  bed  one  night  and  next  morning  there  is  a  baby. 
Why,  it  might  die  of  cold  if  we  are  not  on  the  lookout 
for  it.  I  hope  it  will  be  a  boy." 

"And  you  have  told  your  governess  about  this  ?" 

"Yes,  but  she  puts  me  off  and  does  not  help  me:  she 
says  it  will  not  come  for  many  years,  and  she  hopes  not 
then." 

"Are  you  quite  sure  that  you  have  not  made  any  mis- 
take in  all  this  ?" 

"Oh,  no;  because  Mrs.  Burne,  you  know,  called  here 
a  few  days  ago,  and  I  was  sent  for  to  be  looked  at.  And 
mamma  held  me  out  at  arm's  length  and  said,  'Is  he  Mr. 
Pontifex's  child,  Mrs.  Burne,  or  is  he  mine?'  Of  course, 
she  couldn't  have  said  this  if  papa  had  not  had  some  of 
the  children  himself.  I  did  think  the  gentleman  had 
all  the  boys  and  the  lady  all  the  girls;  but  it  can't  be 
like  this,  or  else  mamma  would  not  have  asked  Mrs. 
Burne  to  guess;  but  then  Mrs.  Burne  said,  'Oh,  he's 
Mr.  Pontifex's  child  of  course,'  and  I  didn't  quite  know 
what  she  meant  by  saying  'of  course' :  it  seemed  as 
though  I  was  right  in  thinking  that  the  husband  has 
all  the  boys  and  the  wife  all  the  girls ;  I  wish  you  would 
explain  to  me  all  about  it." 

This  I  could  hardly  do,  so  I  changed  the  conversa- 
tion, after  reassuring  him  as  best  I  could. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THREE  or  four  years  after  the  birth  of  her  daughter, 
Christina  had  had  one  more  child.  She  had  never  been 
strong  since  she  married,  and  had  a  presentiment  that 
she  should  not  survive  this  last  confinement.  She  accord- 


n8         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

ingly  wrote  the  following  letter,  which  was  to  be  given, 
as  she  endorsed  upon  it,  to  her  sons  when  Ernest  was 
sixteen  years  old.  It  reached  him  on  his  mother's  death 
many  years  later,  for  it  was  the  baby  who  died  now, 
and  not  Christina.  It  was  found  among  papers  which 
she  had  repeatedly  and  carefully  arranged,  with  the  seal 
already  broken.  This,  I  am  afraid,  shows  that  Christina 
had  read  it  and  thought  it  too  creditable  to  be  destroyed 
when  the  occasion  that  had  called  it  forth  had  gone  by. 
It  is  as  follows — 


"BATTERSBY,  March  i$th,  1841. 

"Mv  TWO  DEAR  BOYS, — When  this  is  put  into  your 
hands  will  you  try  to  bring  to  mind  the  mother  whom 
you  lost  in  your  childhood,  and  whom,  I  fear,  you  will 
almost  have  forgotten  ?  You,  Ernest,  will  remember  her 
best,  for  you  are  past  five  years  old,  and  the  many,  many 
times  that  she  has  taught  you  your  prayers  and  hymns 
and  sums  and  told  you  stories,  and  our  happy  Sunday 
evenings  will  not  quite  have  passed  from  your  mind, 
and  you,  Joey,  though  only  four,  will  perhaps  recollect 
some  of  these  things.  My  dear,  dear  boys,  for  the  sake 
of  that  mother  who  loved  you  very  dearly — and  for  the 
sake  of  your  own  happiness  for  ever  and  ever — attend 
to  and  try  to  remember,  and  from  time  to  time  read 
over  again  the  last  words  she  can  ever  speak  to  you. 
When  I  think  about  leaving  you  all,  two  things  press 
heavily  upon  me:  one,  your  father's  sorrow  (for  you, 
my  darlings,  after  missing  me  a  little  while,  will  soon 
forget  your  loss),  the  other,  the  everlasting  welfare  of 
my  children.  I  know  how  long  and  deep  the  former  will 
be,  and  I  know  that  he  will  look  to  his  children  to  be 
almost  his  only  earthly  comfort.  You  know  (for  I  am 
certain  that  it  will  have  been  so),  how  he  has  devoted  his 
life  to  you  and  taught  you  and  laboured  to  lead  you  to  all 
that  is  right  and  good.  Oh,  then,  be  sure  that  you  are 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          119 

his  comforts.  Let  him  find  you  obedient,  affectionate  and 
attentive  to  his  wishes,  upright,  self-denying  and  dili- 
gent ;  let  him  never  blush  for  or  grieve  over  the  sins  and 
follies  of  those  who  owe  him  such  a  debt  of  gratitude, 
and  whose  first  duty  it  is  to  study  his  happiness.  You 
have  both  of  you  a  name  which  must  not  be  disgraced,  a 
father  and  a  grandfather  of  whom  to  show  yourselves 
worthy;  your  respectability  and  well-doing  in  life  rest 
mainly  with  yourselves,  but  far,  far  beyond  earthly 
respectability  and  well-doing,  and  compared  with  which 
they  are  as  nothing,  your  eternal  happiness  rests  with 
yourselves.  You  know  your  duty,  but  snares  and 
temptations  from  without  beset  you,  and  the  nearer  you 
approach  to  manhood  the  more  strongly  will  you  feel 
this.  With  God's  help,  with  God's  word,  and  with 
humble  hearts  you  will  stand  in  spite  of  everything,  but 
should  you  leave  off  seeking  in  earnest  for  the  first, 
and  applying  to  the  second,  should  you  learn  to  trust  in 
yourselves,  or  to  the  advice  and  example  of  too  many 
around  you,  you  will,  you  must  fall.  Oh,  'let  God  be 
true  and  every  man  a  liar.'  He  says  you  cannot  serve 
Him  and  Mammon.  He  says  that  strait  is  the  gate  that 
leads  to  eternal  life.  Many  there  are  who  seek  to 
widen  it;  they  will  tell  you  that  such  and  such  self- 
indulgences  are  but  venial  offences — that  this  and  that 
worldly  compliance  is  excusable  and  even  necessary. 
The  thing  cannot  be;  for  in  a  hundred  and  a  hundred 
places  He  tells  you  so — look  to  your  Bibles  and  seek 
there  whether  such  counsel  is  true — and  if  not,  oh,  'halt 
not  between  two  opinions,'  if  God  is  the  Lord  follow 
Him;  only  be  strong  and  of  a  good  courage,  and  He  will 
never  leave  you  nor  forsake  you.  Remember,  there  is 
not  in  the  Bible  one  law  for  the  rich,  and  one  for  the 
poor — one  for  the  educated  and  one  for  the  ignorant. 
To  all  there  is  but  one  thing  needful.  All  are  to  be 
living  to  God  and  their  fellow-creatures,  and  not  to  them- 
selves. All  must  seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and 


120         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

His  righteousness — must  deny  themselves,  be  pure  and 
chaste  and  charitable  in  the  fullest  and  widest  sense — 
all,  'forgetting  those  things  that  are  behind,'  must  'press 
forward  towards  the  mark,  for  the  prize  of  the  high 
calling  of  God.' 

"And  now  I  will  add  but  two  things  more.  Be  true 
through  life  to  each  other,  love  as  only  brothers  should 
do,  strengthen,  warn,  encourage  one  another,  and  let 
who  will  be  against  you,  let  each  feel  that  in  his  brother 
he  has  a  firm  and  faithful  friend  who  will  be  so  to  the 
end ;  and,  oh !  be  kind  and  watchful  over  your  dear 
sister;  without  mother  or  sisters  she  will  doubly  need 
her  brothers'  love  and  tenderness  and  confidence.  I  am 
certain  she  will  seek  them,  and  will  love  you  and  try  to 
make  you  happy;  be  sure  then  that  you  do  not  fail  her, 
and  remember,  that  were  she  to  lose  her  father  and 
remain  unmarried,  she  would  doubly  need  protectors. 
To  you,  then,  I  especially  commend  her.  Oh!  my  three 
darling  children,  be  true  to  each  other,  your  Father, 
and  your  God.  May  He  guide  and  bless  you,  and  grant 
that  in  a  better  and  happier  world  I  and  mine  may  meet 
again. — Your  most  affectionate  mother, 

"CHRISTINA  PONTIFEX." 

From  enquiries  I  have  made,  I  have  satisfied  myself 
that  most  mothers  write  letters  like  this  shortly  before 
their  confinements,  and  that  fifty  per  cent,  keep  them 
afterwards,  as  Christina  did. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  foregoing  letter  shows  how  much  greater  was  Chris- 
tina's anxiety  for  the  eternal  than  for  the  temporal  wel- 
fare of  her  sons.  One  would  have  thought  she  had 
sowed  enough  of  such  religious  wild  oats  by  this  time, 


.  The  Way  of  All  Flesh         121 

but  she  had  plenty  still  to  sow.  To  me  it  seems  that 
those  who  are  happy  in  this  world  are  better  and  more 
lovable  people  than  those  who  are  not,  and  that  thus  in 
the  event  of  a  Resurrection  and  Day  of  Judgement,  they 
will  be  the  most  likely  to  be  deemed  worthy  of  a  heavenly 
mansion.  Perhaps  a  dim  unconscious  perception  of  this 
was  the  reason  why  Christina  was  so  anxious  for  Theo- 
bald's earthly  happiness,  or  was  it  merely  due  to  a 
conviction  that  his  eternal  welfare  was  so  much  a  matter 
of  course,  that  it  only  remained  to  secure  his  earthly 
happiness  ?  He  was  to  "find  his  sons  obedient,  affection- 
ate, attentive  to  his  wishes,  self-denying  and  diligent," 
a  goodly  string  forsooth  of  all  the  virtues  most  con- 
venient to  parents;  he  was  never  to  have  to  blush  for 
the  follies  of  those  "who  owed  him  such  a  debt  of 
gratitude,"  and  "whose  first  duty  it  was  to  study  his 
happiness."  How  like  maternal  solicitude  is  this !  Solici- 
tude for  the  most  part  lest  the  offspring  should  come  to 
have  wishes  and  feelings  of  its  own,  which  may  occasion 
many  difficulties,  fancied  or  real.  It  is  this  that  is  at 
the  bottom  of  the  whole  mischief ;  but  whether  this  last 
proposition  is  granted  or  no,  at  any  rate  we  observe 
that  Christina  had  a  sufficiently  keen  appreciation  of  the 
duties  of  children  towards  their  parents,  and  felt  the  task 
of  fulfilling  them  adequately  to  be  so  difficult  that  she 
was  very  doubtful  how  far  Ernest  and  Joey  would 
succeed  in  mastering  it.  It  is  plain  in  fact  that  her 
supposed  parting  glance  upon  them  was  one  of  sus- 
picion. But  there  was  no  suspicion  of  Theobald;  that 
he  should  have  devoted  his  life  to  his  children — why,  this 
was  such  a  mere  platitude,  as  almost  to  go  without 
saying. 

How,  let  me  ask,  was  it  possible  that  a  child  only  a 
little  past  five  years  old,  trained  in  such  an  atmosphere 
of  prayers  and  hymns  and  sums  and  happy  Sunday 
evenings — to  say  nothing  of  daily  repeated  beatings  over 
the  said  prayers  and  hymns,  etc.,  about  which  our  au- 


122         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

thoress  is  silent — how  was  it  possible  that  a  lad  so 
trained  should  grow  up  in  any  healthy  or  vigorous  de- 
velopment, even  though  in  her  own  way  his  mother  was 
undoubtedly  very  fond  of  him,  and  sometimes  told  him 
stories?  Can  the  eye  of  any  reader  fail  to  detect  the 
coming  wrath  of  God  as  about  to  descend  upon  the  head 
of  him  who  should  be  nurtured  under  the  shadow  of 
such  a  letter  as  the  foregoing? 

I  have  often  thought  that  the  Church  of  Rome  does 
wisely  in  not  allowing  her  priests  to  marry.  Certainly 
it  is  a  matter  of  common  observation  in  England  that 
the  sons  of  clergymen  are  frequently  unsatisfactory.  The 
explanation  is  very  simple,  but  is  so  often  lost  sight  of 
that  I  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  giving  it  here. 

The  clergyman  is  expected  to  be  a  kind  of  human 
Sunday.  Things  must  not  be  done  in  him  which  are 
venial  in  the  week-day  classes.  He  is  paid  for  this  busi- 
ness of  leading  a  stricter  life  than  other  people.  It  is 
his  raison  d'etre.  If  his  parishioners  feel  that  he  does 
this,  they  approve  of  him,  for  they  look  upon  him  as 
their  own  contribution  towards  what  they  deem  a  holy 
life.  This  is  why  the  clergyman  is  so  often  called  a 
vicar — he  being  the  person  whose  vicarious  goodness  is 
to  stand  for  that  of  those  entrusted  to  his  charge.  But 
his  home  is  his  castle  as  much  as  that  of  any  other  Eng- 
lishman, and  with  him,  as  with  others,  unnatural  tension 
in  public  is  followed  by  exhaustion  when  tension  is  no 
longer  necessary.  His  children  are  the  most  defenceless 
things  he  can  reach,  and  it  is  on  them  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten  that  he  will  relieve  his  mind. 

A  clergyman,  again,  can  hardly  ever  allow  himself 
to  look  facts  fairly  in  the  face.  It  is  his  profession  to 
support  one  side;  it  is  impossible,  therefore,  for  him  to 
make  an  unbiassed  examination  of  the  other. 

We  forget  that  every  clergyman  with  a  living  or 
curacy,  is  as  much  a  paid  advocate  as  the  barrister  who 
is  trying  to  persuade  a  jury  to  acquit  a  prisoner.  We 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         123 

should  listen  to  him  with  the  same  suspense  of  judgment, 
the  same  full  consideration  of  the  arguments  of  the 
opposing  counsel,  as  a  judge  does  when  he  is  trying  a 
case.  Unless  we  know  these,  and  can  state  them  in  a 
way  that  our  opponents  would  admit  to  be  a  fair  repre- 
sentation of  their  views,  we  have  no  right  to  claim  that 
we  have  formed  an  opinion  at  all.  The  misfortune  is 
that  by  the  law  of  the  land  one  side  only  can  be  heard. 

Theobald  and  Christina  were  no  exceptions  to  the 
general  rule.  When  they  came  to  Battersby  they  had 
every  desire  to  fulfil  the  duties  of  their  position,  and 
to  devote  themselves  to  the  honour  and  glory  of  God. 
But  it  was  Theobald's  duty  to  see  the  honour  and  glory 
of  God  through  the  eyes  of  a  Church  which  had  lived 
three  hundred  years  without  finding  reason  to  change  a 
single  one  of  its  opinions. 

I  should  doubt  whether  he  ever  got  as  far  as  doubting 
the  wisdom  of  his  Church  upon  any  single  matter.  His 
scent  for  possible  mischief  was  tolerably  keen;  so  was 
Christina's,  and  it  is  likely  that  if  either  of  them  detected 
in  him  or  herself  the  first  faint  symptoms  of  a  want  of 
faith  they  were  nipped  no  less  peremptorily  in  the  bud, 
than  signs  of  self-will  in  Ernest  were — and  I  should 
imagine  more  successfully.  Yet  Theobald  considered 
himself,  and  was  generally  considered  to  be,  and  indeed 
perhaps  was,  an  exceptionally  truthful  person ;  indeed  he 
was  generally  looked  upon  as  an  embodiment  of  all  those 
virtues  which  make  the  poor  respectable  and  the  rich 
respected.  In  the  course  of  time  he  and  his  wife  became 
persuaded  even  to  unconsciousness,  that  no  one  could 
even  dwell  under  their  roof  without  deep  cause  for 
thankfulness.  Their  children,  their  servants,  their 
parishioners  must  be  fortunate  ipso  facto  that  they  were 
theirs.  There  was  no  road  to  happiness  here  or  here- 
after, but  the  road  that  they  had  themselves  travelled, 
no  good  people  who  did  not  think  as  they  did  upon  every 
subject,  and  no  reasonable  person  who  had  wants  the 


124         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

gratification  of  which  would  be  inconvenient  to  them — 
Theobald  and  Christina. 

This  was  how  it  came  to  pass  that  their  children  were 
white  and  puny ;  they  were  suffering  from  home-sickness. 
They  were  starving,  through  being  over-crammed  with 
the  wrong  things.  Nature  came  down  upon  them,  but 
she  did  not  come  down  on  Theobald  and  Christina.  Why 
should  she  ?  They  were  not  leading  a  starved  existence. 
There  are  two  classes  of  people  in  this  world,  those  who 
sin,  and  those  who  are  sinned  against ;  if  a  man  must 
belong  to  either,  he  had  better  belong  to  the  first  than 
to  the  second. 

CHAPTER  XXVII 

I  WILL  give  no  more  of  the  details  of  my  hero's  earlier 
years.  Enough  that  he  struggled  through  them,  and  at 
twelve  years  old  knew  every  page  of  his  Latin  and  Greek 
Grammars  by  heart.  He  had  read  the  greater  part  of 
Virgil,  Horace  and  Livy,  and  I  do  not  know  how  many 
Greek  plays :  he  was  proficient  in  arithmetic,  knew  the 
first  four  books  of  Euclid  thoroughly,  and  had  a  fair 
knowledge  of  French.  It  was  now  time  he  went  to 
school,  and  to  school  he  was  accordingly  to  go,  under 
the  famous  Dr.  Skinner  of  Roughborough. 

Theobald  had  known  Dr.  Skinner  slightly  at  Cam- 
bridge. He  had  been  a  burning  and  a  shining  light  in 
every  position  he  had  filled  from  his  boyhood  upwards. 
He  was  a  very  great  genius.  Everyone  knew  this ;  they 
said,  indeed,  that  he  was  one  of  the  few  people  to  whom 
the  word  genius  could  be  applied  without  exaggeration. 
Had  he  not  taken  I  don't  know  how  many  University 
Scholarships  in  his  freshman's  year?  Had  he  not  been 
afterwards  Senior  Wrangler,  First  Chancellor's  Medal- 
list and  I  do  not  know  how  many  more  things  besides? 
And  then,  he  was  such  a  wonderful  speaker;  at  the 
Union  Debating  Club  he  had  been  without  a  rival,  and 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          125 

had,  of  course,  been  president;  his  moral  character — a 
point  on  which  so  many  geniuses  were  weak — was  abso- 
lutely irreproachable;  foremost  of  all,  however,  among 
his  many  great  qualities,  and  perhaps  more  remarkable 
even  than  his  genius  was  what  biographers  have  called 
"the  simple-minded  and  childlike  earnestness  of  his 
character,"  an  earnestness  which  might  be  perceived  by 
the  solemnity  with  which  he  spoke  even  about  trifles.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  say  he  was  on  the  Liberal  side  in 
politics. 

His  personal  appearance  was  not  particularly  pre- 
possessing. He  was  about  the  middle  height,  portly,  and 
had  a  couple  of  fierce  grey  eyes,  that  flashed  fire  from 
beneath  a  pair  of  great,  bushy,  beetling  eyebrows  and 
overawed  all  who  came  near  him.  It  was  in  respect  of 
his  personal  appearance,  however,  that,  if  he  was  vulner- 
able at  all,  his  weak  place  was  to  be  found.  His  hair 
when  he  was  a  young  man  was  red,  but  after  he  had 
taken  his  degree  he  had  a  brain  fever  which  caused  him 
to  have  his  head  shaved ;  when  he  reappeared  he  did  so 
wearing  a  wig,  and  one  which  was  a  good  deal  further 
off  red  than  his  own  hair  had  been.  He  not  only  had 
never  discarded  his  wig,  but  year  by  year  it  had  edged 
itself  a  little  more  and  a  little  more  off  red,  till  by  the 
time  he  was  forty,  there  was  not  a  trace  of  red  remain- 
ing, and  his  wig  was  brown. 

When  Dr.  Skinner  was  a  very  young  man,  hardly  more 
than  five-and-twenty,  the  head-mastership  of  Rough- 
borough  Grammar  School  had  fallen  vacant,  and  he 
had  been  unhesitatingly  appointed.  The  result  justified 
the  selection.  Dr.  Skinner's  pupils  distinguished  them- 
selves at  whichever  University  they  went  to.  He 
moulded  their  minds  after  the  model  of  his  own,  and 
stamped  an  impression  upon  them  which  was  indelible 
in  after-life;  whatever  else  a  Roughborough  man  might 
be,  he  was  sure  to  make  everyone  feel  that  he  was  a 
God-fearing  earnest  Christian  and  a  Liberal,  if  not  a 


126         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Radical,  in  politics.  Some  boys,  of  course,  were  in- 
capable of  appreciating  the  beauty  and  loftiness  of  Dr. 
Skinner's  nature.  Some  such  boys,  alas !  there  will  be  in 
every  school ;  upon  them  Dr.  Skinner's  hand  was  very 
properly  a  heavy  one.  His  hand  was  against  them,  and 
theirs  against  him  during  the  whole  time  of  the  connec- 
tion between  them.  They  not  only  disliked  him,  but  they 
hated  all  that  he  more  especially  embodied,  and  through- 
out their  lives  disliked  all  that  reminded  them  of  him. 
Such  boys,  however,  were  in  a  minority,  the  spirit  of 
the  place  being  decidedly  Skinnerian. 

I  once  had  the  honour  of  playing  a  game  of  chess 
with  this  great  man.  It  was  during  the  Christmas  holi- 
days, and  I  had  come  down  to  Roughborough  for  a  few 
days  to  see  Alethea  Pontifex  (who  was  then  living 
there)  on  business.  It  was  very  gracious  of  him  to 
take  notice  of  me,  for  if  I  was  a  light  of  literature  at  all 
it  was  of  the  very  lightest  kind. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  intervals  of  business  I  had  written 
a  good  deal,  but  my  works  had  been  almost  exclusively 
for  the  stage,  and  for  those  theatres  that  devoted  them- 
selves to  extravanganza  and  burlesque.  I  had  written 
many  pieces  of  this  description,  full  of  puns  and  comic 
songs,  and  they  had  had  a  fair  success,  but  my  best  piece 
had  been  a  treatment  of  English  history  during  the 
Reformation  period,  in  the  course  of  which  I  had  intro- 
duced Cranmer,  Sir  Thomas  More,  Henry  the  Eighth, 
Catherine  of  Arragon,  and  Thomas  Cromwell  (in  his 
youth  better  known  as  the  Malleus  M onachorum} ,  and 
had  made  them  dance  a  break-down.  I  had  also  drama- 
tised "The  Pilgrim's  Progress"  for  a  Christmas  Panto- 
mime, and  made  an  important  scene  of  Vanity  Fair,  with 
Mr.  Greatheart,  Apollyon,  Christiana,  Mercy,  and  Hope- 
ful as  the  principal  characters.  The  orchestra  played 
music  taken  from  Handel's  best  known  works,  but  the 
tiaie  was  a  good  deal  altered,  and  altogether  the  tunes 
were  not  exactly  as  Handel  left  them.  Mr.  Greatheart 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         127 

was  very  stout  and  he  had  a  red  nose ;  he  wore  a  capa- 
cious waistcoat,  and  a  shirt  with  a  huge  frill  down  the 
middle  of  the  front.  Hopeful  was  up  to  as  much  mis- 
chief as  I  could  give  him;  he  wore  the  costume  of  a 
young  swell  of  the  period,  and  had  a  cigar  in  his  mouth 
which  was  continually  going  out. 

Christiana  did  not  wear  much  of  anything:  indeed  it 
was  said  that  the  dress  which  the  Stage  Manager  had 
originally  proposed  for  her  had  been  considered  inade- 
quate even  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  but  this  is  not  the 
case.  With  all  these  delinquencies  upon  my  mind  it  was 
natural  that  I  should  feel  convinced  of  sin  while  playing 
chess  (which  I  hate)  with  the  great  Dr.  Skinner  of 
Roughborough — the  historian  of  Athens  and  editor  of 
Demosthenes.  Dr.  Skinner,  moreover,  was  one  of  those 
.who  pride  themselves  on  being  able  to  set  people  at 
their  ease  at  once,  and  I  had  been  sitting  on  the  edge  of 
my  chair  all  the  evening.  But  I  have  always  been  very 
easily  overawed  by  a  schoolmaster. 

The  game  had  been  a  long  one,  and  at  half-past  nine, 
when  supper  came  in,  we  had  each  of  us  a  few  pieces 
remaining.  "What  will  you  take  for  supper,  Dr.  Skin- 
ner?" said  Mrs.  Skinner  in  a  silvery  voice. 

He  made  no  answer  for  some  time,  but  at  last  in  a 
tone  of  almost  superhuman  solemnity,  he  said,  first, 
"Nothing,"  and  then,  "Nothing  whatever." 

By  and  by,  however,  I  had  a  sense  come  over  me  as 
though  I  were  nearer  the  consummation  of  all  things 
than  I  had  ever  yet  been.  The  room  seemed  to  grow 
dark,  as  an  expression  came  over  Dr.  Skinner's  face, 
which  showed  that  he  was  about  to  speak.  The  expres- 
sion gathered  force,  the  room  grew  darker  and  darker. 
"Stay,"  he  at  length  added,  and  I  felt  that  here  at  any 
rate  was  an  end  to  a  suspense  which  was  rapidly  becom- 
ing unbearable.  "Stay — I  may  presently  take  a  glass  of 
cold  water — and  a  small  piece  of  bread  and  butter." 

As  he  said  the  word  "butter"  his  voice  sank  to  a 


128         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

hardly  audible  whisper ;  then  there  was  a  sigh  as  though 
of  relief  when  the  sentence  was  concluded,  and  the 
universe  this  time  was  safe. 

Another  ten  minutes  of  solemn  silence  finished  the 
game.  The  Doctor  rose  briskly  from  his  seat  and  placed 
himself  at  the  supper  table.  "Mrs.  Skinner,"  he  ex- 
claimed jauntily,  "what  are  those  mysterious-looking 
objects  surrounded  by  potatoes?" 

"Those  are  oysters,  Dr.  Skinner." 

"Give  me  some,  and  give  Overton  some." 

And  so  on  till  he  had  eaten  a  good  plate  of  oysters,  a 
scallop  shell  of  minced  veal  nicely  browned,  some  apple 
tart,  and  a  hunk  of  bread  and  cheese.  This  was  the 
small  piece  of  bread  and  butter. 

The  cloth  was  now  removed  and  tumblers  with  tea- 
spoons in  them,  a  lemon  or  two  and  a  jug  of  boiling 
water  were  placed  upon  the  table.  Then  the  great  man 
unbent.  His  face  beamed. 

"And  what  shall  it  be  to  drink?"  he  exclaimed  per- 
suasively. "Shall  it  be  brandy  and  water?  No.  It 
shall  be  gin  and  water.  Gin  is  the  more  wholesome 
liquor." 

So  gin  it  was,  hot  and  stiff,  too. 

Who  can  wonder  at  him  or  do  anything  but  pity  him  ? 
Was  he  not  head-master  of  Roughborough  School?  To 
whom  had  he  owed  money  at  any  time  ?  Whose  ox  had 
he  taken,  whose  ass  had  he  taken,  or  whom  had  he 
defrauded?  What  whisper  had  ever  been  breathed 
against  his  moral  character?  If  he  had  become  rich  it 
was  by  the  most  honourable  of  all  means — his  literary 
attainments ;  over  and  above  his  great  works  of  scholar- 
ship, his  "Meditations  upon  the  Epistle  and  Character 
of  St.  Jude"  had  placed  him  among  the  most  popular  of 
English  theologians;  it  was  so  exhaustive  that  no  one 
who  bought  it  need  ever  meditate  upon  the  subject  again 
— indeed  it  exhausted  all  who  had  anything  to  do  with 
it.  He  had  made  £5000  by  this  work  alone,  and  would 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         129 

very  likely  make  another  £5000  before  he  died.  A  man 
who  had  done  all  this  and  wanted  a  piece  of  bread  and 
butter  had  a  right  to  announce  the  fact  with  some  pomp 
and  circumstance.  Nor  should  his  words  be  taken  with- 
out searching  for  what  he  used  to  call  a  "deeper  and 
more  hidden  meaning."  Those  who  searched  for  this 
even  in  his  lightest  utterances  would  not  be  without 
their  reward.  They  would  find  that  "bread  and  butter" 
was  Skinnerese  for  oyster-patties  and  apple  tart,  and 
"gin  hot"  the  true  translation  of  water. 

But  independently  of  their  money  value,  his  works  had 
made  him  a  lasting  name  in  literature.  So  probably 
Gallio  was  under  the  impression  that  his  fame  would 
rest  upon  the  treatises  on  natural  history  which  we 
gather  from  Seneca  that  he  compiled,  and  which  for 
aught  we  know  may  have  contained  a  complete  theory 
of  evolution ;  but  the  treatises  are  all  gone  and  Gallio  has 
become  immortal  for  the  very  last  reason  in  the  world 
that  he  expected,  and  for  the  very  last  reason  that  would 
have  flattered  his  vanity.  He  has  become  immortal  be- 
cause he  cared  nothing  about  the  most  important  move- 
ment with  which  he  was  ever  brought  into  connection 
(I  wish  people  who  are  in  search  of  immortality  would 
lay  the  lesson  to  heart  and  not  make  so  much  noise 
about  important  movements),  and  so,  if  Dr.  Skinner 
becomes  immortal,  it  will  probably  be  for  some  reason 
very  different  from  the  one  which  he  so  fondly  imagined. 

Could  it  be  expected  to  enter  into  the  head  of  such  a 
man  as  this  that  in  reality  he  was  making  his  money  by 
corrupting  youth ;  that  it  was  his  paid  profession  to  make 
the  worse  appear  the  better  reason  in  the  eyes  of  those 
who  were  too  young  and  inexperienced  to  be  able  to 
find  him  out;  that  he  kept  out  of  the  sight  of  those 
whom  he  professed  to  teach  material  points  of  the 
argument,  for  the  production  of  which  they  had  a  right 
to  rely  upon  the  honour  of  anyone  who  made  profes- 
sions of  sincerity ;  that  he  was  a  passionate,  half-turkey- 


130         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

cock,  half-gander  of  a  man  whose  sallow,  bilious  face  and 
hobble-gobble  voice  could  scare  the  timid,  but  who  would 
take  to  his  heels  readily  enough  if  he  were  met  firmly; 
that  his  "Meditations  on  St.  Jude,"  such  as  they  were, 
were  cribbed  without  acknowledgment,  and  would  have 
been  beneath  contempt  if  so  many  people  did  not  believe 
them  to  have  been  written  honestly  ?  Mrs.  Skinner  might 
have  perhaps  kept  him  a  little  more  in  his  proper  place 
if  she  had  thought  it  worth  while  to  try,  but  she  had 
enough  to  attend  to  in  looking  after  her  household  and 
seeing  that  the  boys  were  well  fed  and,  if  they  were  ill, 
properly  looked  after — which  she  took  good  care  they 
were. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 

ERNEST  had  heard  awful  accounts  of  Dr.  Skinner's  tem- 
per, and  of  the  bullying  which  the  younger  boys  at 
Roughborough  had  to  put  up  with  at  the  hands  of  the 
bigger  ones.  He  had  now  got  about  as  much  as  he  could 
stand,  and  felt  as  though  it  must  go  hard  with  him  if  his 
burdens  of  whatever  kind  were  to  be  increased.  He  did 
not  cry  on  leaving  home,  but  I  am  afraid  he  did  on  being 
told  that  he  was  getting  near  Roughborough.  His  father 
and  mother  were  with  him,  having  posted  from  home  in 
their  own  carriage;  Roughborough  had  as  yet  no  rail- 
way, and  as  it  was  only  some  forty  miles  from  Battersby, 
this  was  the  easiest  way  of  getting  there. 

On  seeing  him  cry,  his  mother  felt  flattered  and 
caressed  him.  She  said  she  knew  he  must  feel  very  sad 
at  leaving  such  a  happy  home,  and  going  among  people 
who,  though  they  would  be  very  good  to  him,  could 
never,  never  be  as  good  as  his  dear  papa  and  she  had 
been;  still,  she  was  herself,  if  he  only  knew  it,  much 
more  deserving  of  pity  than  he  was,  for  the  parting  was 
more  painful  to  her  than  it  could  possibly  be  to  him,  etc., 
and  Ernest,  on  being  told  that  his  tears  were  for  grief 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         131 

at  leaving  home,  took  it  all  on  trust,  and  did  not  trouble 
to  investigate  the  real  cause  of  his  tears.  As  they 
approached  Roughborough  he  pulled  himself  together, 
and  was  fairly  calm  by  the  time  he  reached  Dr.  Skinner's. 

On  their  arrival  they  had  luncheon  with  the  Doctor 
and  his  wife,  and  then  Mrs.  Skinner  took  Christina  over 
the  bedrooms,  and  showed  her  where  her  dear  little  boy 
was  to  sleep. 

Whatever  men  may  think  about  the  study  of  man, 
women  do  really  believe  the  noblest  study  for  woman- 
kind to  be  woman,  and  Christina  was  too  much  engrossed 
with  Mrs.  Skinner  to  pay  much  attention  to  anything 
else;  I  daresay  Mrs.  Skinner,  too,  was  taking  pretty 
accurate  stock  of  Christina.  Christina  was  charmed,  as 
indeed  she  generally  was  with  any  new  acquaintance,  for 
she  found  in  them  (and  so  must  we  all)  something  of 
the  nature  of  a  cross;  as  for  Mrs.  Skinner,  I  imagine 
she  had  seen  too  many  Christinas  to  find  much  regenera- 
tion in  the  sample  now  before  her ;  I  believe  her  private 
opinion  echoed  the  dictum  of  a  well-known  head-master 
who  declared  that  all  parents  were  fools,  but  more  es- 
pecially mothers ;  she  was,  however,  all  smiles  and  sweet- 
ness, and  Christina  devoured  these  graciously  as  tributes 
paid  more  particularly  to  herself,  and  such  as  no  other 
mother  would  have  been  at  all  likely  to  have  won. 

In  the  meantime  Theobald  and  Ernest  were  with  Dr. 
Skinner  in  his  library — the  room  where  new  boys  were 
examined  and  old  ones  had  up  for  rebuke  or  chastise- 
ment. If  the  walls  of  that  room  could  speak,  what  an 
amount  of  blundering  and  capricious  cruelty  would  they 
not  bear  witness  to! 

Like  all  houses,  Dr.  Skinner's  had  its  peculiar  smell. 
In  this  case  the  prevailing  odour  was  one  of  Russia 
leather,  but  along  with  it  there  was  a  subordinate  savour 
as  of  a  chemist's  shop.  This  came  from  a  small  labora- 
tory in  one  corner  of  the  room — the  possession  of  which, 
together  with  the  free  chattery  and  smattery  use  of  such 


132         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

words  as  "carbonate,"  "hyposulphite,"  "phosphate,"  and 
"affinity,"  were  enough  to  convince  even  the  most  scep- 
tical that  Dr.  Skinner  had  a  profound  knowledge  of 
chemistry. 

I  may  say  in  passing  that  Dr.  Skinner  had  dabbled  in 
a  great  many  other  things  as  well  as  chemistry.  He 
was  a  man  of  many  small  knowledges,  and  each  of  them 
dangerous.  I  remember  Alethea  Pontifex  once  said  in 
her  wicked  way  to  me,  that  Dr.  Skinner  put  her  in  mind 
of  the  Bourbon  princes  on  their  return  from  exile  after 
the  battle  of  Waterloo,  only  that  he  was  their  exact 
converse;  for  whereas  they  had  learned  nothing  and 
forgotten  nothing,  Dr.  Skinner  had  learned  everything 
and  forgotten  everything.  And  this  puts  me  in  mind 
of  another  of  her  wicked  sayings  about  Dr.  Skinner. 
She  told  me  one  day  that  he  had  the  harmlessness  of  the 
serpent  and  the  wisdom  of  the  dove. 

But  to  return  to  Dr.  Skinner's  library ;  over  the  chim- 
ney-piece there  was  a  Bishop's  half  length  portrait  of 
Dr.  Skinner  himself,  painted  by  the  elder  Pickersgill, 
whose  merit  Dr.  Skinner  had  been  among  the  first  to 
discern  and  foster.  There  were  no  other  pictures  in  the 
library,  but  in  the  dining-room  there  was  a  fine  collec- 
tion, which  the  Doctor  had  got  together  with  his  usual 
consummate  taste.  He  added  to  it  largely  in  later  life, 
and  when  it  came  to  the  hammer  at  Christie's,  as  it  did 
not  long  since,  it  was  found  to  comprise  many  of  the 
latest  and  most  matured  works  of  Solomon  Hart,  O'Neil, 
Charles  Landseer,  and  more  of  our  recent  Academicians 
than  I  can  at  the  moment  remember.  There  were  thus 
brought  together  and  exhibited  at  one  view  many  works 
which  had  attracted  attention  at  the  Academy  Exhibi- 
tions, and  as  to  whose  ultimate  destiny  there  had  been 
some  curiosity.  The  prices  realised  were  disappointing 
to  the  executors,  but,  then,  these  things  are  so  much  a 
matter  of  chance.  An  unscrupulous  writer  in  a  well- 
known  weekly  paper  had  written  the  collection  down. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         133 

Moreover  there  had  been  one  or  two  large  sales  a  short 
time  before  Dr.  Skinner's,  so  that  at  this  last  there  was 
'rather  a  panic,  and  a  reaction  against  the  high  prices 
that  had  ruled  lately. 

The  table  of  the  library  was  loaded  with  books  many 
deep;  MSS.  of  all  kinds  were  confusedly  mixed  up  with 
them, — boys'  exercises,  probably,  and  examination  papers 
— but  all  littering  untidily  about.  The  room  in  fact  was 
as  depressing  from  its  slatternliness  as  from  its  atmos- 
phere of  erudition.  Theobald  and  Ernest  as  they  entered 
it,  stumbled  over  a  large  hole  in  the  Turkey  carpet,  and 
the  dust  that  rose  showed  how  long  it  was  since  it  had 
been  taken  up  and  beaten.  This,  I  should  say,  was  no 
fault  of  Mrs.  Skinner's  but  was  due  to  the  Doctor  him- 
self, who  declared  that  if  his  papers  were  once  disturbed 
it  would  be  the  death  of  him.  Near  the  window  was  a 
green  cage  containing  a  pair  of  turtle  doves,  whose  plain- 
tive cooing  added  to  the  melancholy  of  the  place.  The 
walls  were  covered  with  book  shelves  from  floor  to 
ceiling,  and  on  every  shelf  the  books  stood  in  double 
rows.  It  was  horrible.  Prominent  among  the  most 
prominent  upon  the  most  prominent  shelf  were  a  series 
of  splendidly  bound  volumes  entitled  "Skinner's  Works." 

Boys  are  sadly  apt  to  rush  to  conclusions,  and  Ernest 
believed  that  Dr.  Skinner  knew  all  the  books  in  this 
terrible  library,  and  that  he,  if  he  were  to  be  any  good, 
should  have  to  learn  them  too.  His  heart  fainted  within 
him. 

He  was  told  to  sit  on  a  chair  against  the  wall  and  did 
so,  while  Dr.  Skinner  talked  to  Theobald  upon  the  topics 
of  the  day.  He  talked  about  the  Hampden  Controversy 
then  raging,  and  discoursed  learnedly  about  "Praemu- 
nire" ;  then  he  talked  about  the  revolution  which  had 
just  broken  out  in  Sicily,  and  rejoiced  that  the  Pope 
had  refused  to  allow  foreign  troops  to  pass  through  his 
dominions  in  order  to  crush  it.  Dr.  Skinner  and  the 
other  masters  took  in  the  Times  among  them,  and  Dr. 


134         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Skinner  echoed  the  Times'  leaders.  In  those  days  there 
were  no  penny  papers  and  Theobald  only  took  in  the 
Spectator — for  he  was  at  that  time  on  the  Whig  side  in 
politics ;  besides  this  he  used  to  receive  the  Ecclesiastical 
Gazette  once  a  month,  but  he  saw  no  other  papers,  and 
was  amazed  at  the  ease  and  fluency  with  which  Dr. 
Skinner  ran  from  subject  to  subject. 

The  Pope's  action  in  the  matter  of  the  Sicilian  revo- 
lution naturally  led  the  Doctor  to  the  reforms  which  his 
Holiness  had  introduced  into  his  dominions,  and  he 
laughed  consumedly  over  the  joke  which  had  not  long 
since  appeared  in  Punch,  to  the  effect  that  Pio  "No,  No," 
should  rather  have  been  named  Pio  "Yes,  Yes,"  because, 
as  the  Doctor  explained,  he  granted  everything  his  sub- 
jects asked  for.  Anything  like  a  pun  went  straight  to 
Dr.  Skinner's  heart. 

Then  he  went  on  to  the  matter  of  these  reforms  them- 
selves. They  opened  up  a  new  era  in  the  history  of 
Christendom,  and  would  have  such  momentous  and  far- 
reaching  consequences,  that  they  might  even  lead  to  a 
reconciliation  between  the  Churches  of  England  and 
Rome.  Dr.  Skinner  had  lately  published  a  pamphlet  upon 
this  subject,  which  had  shown  great  learning,  and  had 
attacked  the  Church  of  Rome  in  a  way  which  did  not 
promise  much  hope  of  reconciliation.  He  had  grounded 
his  attack  upon  the  letters  A.M.D.G.,  which  he  had  seen 
outside  a  Roman  Catholic  chapel,  and  which  of  course 
stood  for  Ad  Mariam  Dei  Genetricem.  Could  anything 
be  more  idolatrous? 

I  am  told,  by  the  way,  that  I  must  have  let  my  memory 
play  me  one  of  the  tricks  it  often  does  play  me,  when  I 
said  the  Doctor  proposed  Ad  Mariam  Dei  Genetricem  as 
the  full  harmonies,  so  to  speak,  which  should  be  con- 
structed upon  the  bass  A.M.D.G.,  for  that  this  is  bad 
Latin,  and  that  the  doctor  really  harmonised  the  letters 
thus:  Ave  Maria  Dei  Genetrix.  No  doubt  the  doctor 
did  what  was  right  in  the  matter  of  Latinity — I  have 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         135 

forgotten  the  little  Latin  I  ever  knew,  and  am  not  going 
to  look  the  matter  up,  but  I  believe  the  doctor  said  Ad 
Mariam  Dei  Genetricem,  and  if  so  we  may  be  sure  that 
Ad  Mariam  Dei  Genetricem  is  good  enough  Latin  at  any 
rate  for  ecclesiastical  purposes. 

The  reply  of  the  local  priest  had  not  yet  appeared,  and 
Dr.  Skinner  was  jubilant,  but  when  the  answer  appeared, 
and  it  was  solemnly  declared  that  A.M.D.G.  stood  for 
nothing  more  dangerous  than  Ad  Majorem  Dei  Gloriam, 
it  was  felt  that  though  this  subterfuge  would  not  succeed 
with  any  intelligent  Englishman,  still  it  was  a  pity  Dr. 
Skinner  had  selected  this  particular  point  for  his  attack, 
for  he  had  to  leave  his  enemy  in  possession  of  the  field. 
When  people  are  left  in  possession  of  the  field,  spectators 
have  an  awkward  habit  of  thinking  that  their  adversary 
does  not  dare  to  come  to  the  scratch. 

Dr.  Skinner  was  telling  Theobald  all  about  his  pam- 
phlet, and  I  doubt  whether  this  gentleman  was  much 
more  comfortable  than  Ernest  himself.  He  was  bored, 
for  in  his  heart  he  hated  Liberalism,  though  he  was 
ashamed  to  say  so,  and,  as  I  have  said,  professed  to  be 
on  the  Whig  side.  He  did  not  want  to  be  reconciled  to 
the  Church  of  Rome;  he  wanted  to  make  all  Roman 
Catholics  turn  Protestants,  and  could  never  understand 
why  they  would  not  do  so;  but  the  Doctor  talked  in 
such  a  truly  liberal  spirit,  and  shut  him  up  so  sharply 
when  he  tried  to  edge  in  a  word  or  two,  that  he  had  to 
let  him  have  it  all  his  own  way,  and  this  was  not  what 
he  was  accustomed  to.  He  was  wondering  how  he  could 
bring  it  to  an  end,  when  a  diversion  was  created  by  the 
discovery  that  Ernest  had  begun  to  cry — doubtless 
through  an  intense  but  inarticulate  sense  of  a  boredom 
greater  than  he  could  bear.  He  was  evidently  in  a 
highly  nervous  state,  and  a  good  deal  upset  by  the  excite- 
ment of  the  morning ;  Mrs.  Skinner  therefore,  who  came 
in  with  Christina  at  this  juncture,  proposed  that  he 
should  spend  the  afternoon  with  Mrs.  Jay,  the  matron, 


and  not  be  introduced  to  his  young  companions  until  the 
following  morning.  His  father  and  mother  now  bade 
him  an  affectionate  farewell,  and  the  lad  was  handed 
over  to  Mrs.  Jay. 

O  schoolmasters — if  any  of  you  read  this  book — bear 
in  mind  when  any  particularly  timid,  drivelling  urchin  is 
brought  by  his  papa  into  your  study,  and  you  treat  him 
with  the  contempt  which  he  deserves,  and  afterwards 
make  his  life  a  burden  to  him  for  years — bear  in  mind 
that  it  is  exactly  in  the  disguise  of  such  a  boy  as  this 
that  your  future  chronicler  will  appear.  Never  see  a 
wretched  little  heavy-eyed  mite  sitting  on  the  edge  of  a 
chair  against  your  study  wall  without  saying  to  your- 
selves, "Perhaps  this  boy  is  he  who,  if  I  am  not  careful, 
will  one  day  tell  the  world  what  manner  of  man  I  was." 
If  even  two  or  three  schoolmasters  learn  this  lesson  and 
remember  it,  the  preceding  chapters  will  not  have  been 
written  in  vain. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

SOON  after  his  father  and  mother  had  left  him  Ernest 
dropped  asleep  over  a  book  which  Mrs.  Jay  had  given 
him,  and  he  did  not  awake  till  dusk.  Then  he  sat 
down  on  a  stool  in  front  of  the  fire,  which  showed 
pleasantly  in  the  late  January  twilight,  and  began  to 
muse.  He  felt  weak,  feeble,  ill  at  ease  and  unable  to 
see  his  way  out  of  the  innumerable  troubles  that  were 
before  him.  Perhaps,  he  said  to  himself,  he  might  even 
die,  but  this,  far  from  being  an  end  of  his  troubles,  would 
prove  the  beginning  of  new  ones ;  for  at  the  best  he 
would  only  go  to  Grandpapa  Pontifex  and  Grandmamma 
Allaby,  and  though  they  would  perhaps  be  more  easy  to 
get  on  with  than  papa  and  mamma,  yet  they  were  un- 
doubtedly not  so  really  good,  and  were  more  worldly ; 
moreover  they  were  grown-up  people — especially  Grand- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         137 

papa  Pontifex,  who  so  far  as  he  could  understand  had 
been  very  much  grown-up,  and  he  did  not  know  why,  but 
there  was  always  something  that  kept  him  from  loving 
any  grown-up  people  very  much — except  one  or  two  of 
the  servants,  who  had  indeed  been  as  nice  as  anything 
that  he  could  imagine.  Besides  even  if  he  were  to  die 
and  go  to  Heaven  he  supposed  he  should  have  to  com- 
plete his  education  somewhere. 

In  the  meantime  his  father  and  mother  were  rolling 
along  the  muddy  roads,  each  in  his  or  her  own  corner  of 
the  carriage,  and  each  revolving  many  things  which  were 
and  were  not  to  come  to  pass.  Times  have  changed  since 
I  last  showed  them  to  the  reader  as  sitting  together 
silently  in  a  carriage,  but  except  as  regards  their  mutual 
relations,  they  have  altered  singularly  little.  When  I 
was  younger  I  used  to  think  the  Prayer  Book  was  wrong 
in  requiring  us  to  say  the  General  Confession  twice  a 
week  from  childhood  to  old  age,  without  making  pro- 
vision for  our  not  being  quite  such  great  sinners  at 
seventy  as  we  had  been  at  seven ;  granted  that  we  should 
go  to  the  wash  like  table-cloths  at  least  once  a  week, 
still  I  used  to  think  a  day  ought  to  come  when  we  should 
want  rather  less  rubbing  and  scrubbing  at.  Now  that  I 
have  grown  older  myself  I  have  seen  that  the  Church  has 
estimated  probabilities  better  than  I  had  done. 

The  pair  said  not  a  word  to  one  another,  but  watched 
the  fading  light  and  naked  trees,  the  brown  fields  with 
here  and  there  a  melancholy  cottage  by  the  roadside, 
and  the  rain  that  fell  fast  upon  the  carriage  windows. 
It  was  a  kind  of  afternoon  on  which  nice  people  for 
the  most  part  like  to  be  snug  at  home,  and  Theobald 
was  a  little  snappish  at  reflecting  how  many  miles  he 
had  to  post  before  he  could  be  at  his  own  fireside  again. 
However,  there  was  nothing  for  it,  so  the  pair  sat  quietly 
and  watched  the  roadside  objects  flit  by  them,  and  get 
greyer  and  grimmer  as  the  light  faded. 

Though  they  spoke  not  to  one  another,  there  was  one 


138         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

nearer  to  each  of  them  with  whom  they  could  converse 
freely.  "I  hope,"  said  Theobald  to  himself,  "I  hope  he'll 
work — or  else  that  Skinner  will  make  him.  I  don't  like 
Skinner,  I  never  did  like  him,  but  he  is  unquestionably  a 
man  of  genius,  and  no  one  turns  out  so  many  pupils  who 
succeed  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  that  is  the  best 
test.  I  have  done  my  share  towards  starting  him  well. 
Skinner  said  he  had  been  well  grounded  and  was  very 
forward.  I  suppose  he  will  presume  upon  it  now  and 
do  nothing,  for  his  nature  is  an  idle  one.  He  is  not  fond 
of  me,  I'm  sure  he  is  not.  He  ought  to  be  after  all  the 
trouble  I  have  taken  with  him,  but  he  is  ungrateful  and 
selfish.  It  is  an  unnatural  thing  for  a  boy  not  to  be  fond 
of  his  own  father.  If  he  was  fond  of  me  I  should  be 
fond  of  him,  but  I  cannot  like  a  son  who,  I  am  sure, 
dislikes  me.  He  shrinks  out  of  my  way  whenever  he  sees 
me  coming  near  him.  He  will  not  stay  five  minutes  in 
the  same  room  with  me  if  he  can  help  it.  He  is  deceitful. 
He  would  not  want  to  hide  himself  away  so  much  if  he 
were  not  deceitful.  That  is  a  bad  sign  and  one  which 
makes  me  fear  he  will  grow  up  extravagant.  I  am  sure 
he  will  grow  up  extravagant.  I  should  have  given  him 
more  pocket-money  if  I  had  not  known  this — but  what  is 
the  good  of  giving  him  pocket-money?  It  is  all  gone 
directly.  If  he  doesn't  buy  something  with  it  he  gives  it 
away  to  the  first  little  boy  or  girl  he  sees  who  takes  his 
fancy.  He  forgets  that  it's  my  money  he  is  giving  away. 
I  give  him  money  that  he  may  have  money  and  learn  to 
know  its  uses,  not  that  he  may  go  and  squander  it  imme- 
diately. I  wish  he  was  not  so  fond  of  music;  it  will 
interfere  with  his  Latin  and  Greek.  I  will  stop  it  as 
much  as  I  can.  Why,  when  he  was  translating  Livy  the 
other  day  he  slipped  out  Handel's  name  in  mistake  for 
Hannibal's,  and  his  mother  tells  me  he  knows  half  the 
tunes  in  the  'Messiah'  by  heart.  What  should  a  boy  of 
his  age  know  about  the  'Messiah'?  If  I  had  shown  half 
as  many  dangerous  tendencies  when  I  was  a  boy,  my 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         139 

father  would  have  apprenticed  me  to  a  greengrocer,  of 
that  I'm  very  sure,"  etc.,  etc. 

Then  his  thoughts  turned  to  Egypt  and  the  tenth 
plague.  It  seemed  to  him  that  if  the  little  Egyptians  had 
been  anything  like  Ernest,  the  plague  must  have  been 
something  very  like  a  blessing  in  disguise.  If  the  Israel- 
ites were  to  come  to  England  now  he  should  be  greatly 
tempted  not  to  let  them  go. 

Mrs.  Theobald's  thoughts  ran  in  a  different  current. 
"Lord  Lonsford's  grandson — it's  a  pity  his  name  is 
Figgins ;  however,  blood  is  blood  as  much  through  the 
female  line  as  the  male ;  indeed,  perhaps  even  more  so  if 
the  truth  were  known.  I  wonder  who  Mr.  Figgins  was. 
I  think  Mrs.  Skinner  said  he  was  dead ;  however,  I  must 
find  out  all  about  him.  It  would  be  delightful  if  young 
Figgins  were  to  ask  Ernest  home  for  the  holidays.  Who 
knows  but  he  might  meet  Lord  Lonsford  himself,  or  at 
any  rate  some  of  Lord  Lonsford's  other  descendants?" 

Meanwhile  the  boy  himself  was  still  sitting  moodily 
before  the  fire  in  Mrs.  Jay's  room.  "Papa  and  mamma," 
he  was  saying  to  himself,  "are  much  better  and  cleverer 
than  anyone  else,  but,  I,  alas !  shall  never  be  either  good 
or  clever." 

Mrs.  Pontifex  continued — 

"Perhaps  it  would  be  best  to  get  young  Figgins  on  a 
visit  to  ourselves  first.  That  would  be  charming.  Theo- 
bald would  not  like  it,  for  he  does  not  like  children;  I 
must  see  how  I  can  manage  it,  for  it  would  be  so  nice 
to  have  young  Figgins — or  stay!  Ernest  shall,  go  and 
stay  with  Figgins  and  meet  the  future  Lord  Lonsford, 
who  I  should  think  must  be  about  Ernest's  age,  and  then 
if  he  and  Ernest  were  to  become  friends  Ernest  might 
ask  him  to  Battersby,  and  he  might  fall  in  love  with 
Charlotte.  I  think  we  have  done  most  wisely  in  sending 
Ernest  to  Dr.  Skinner's.  Dr.  Skinner's  piety  is  no  less 
remarkable  than  his  genius.  One  can  tell  these  things 
,at  a  glance,  and  he  must  have  felt  it  about  me  no  less 


140         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

strongly  than  I  about  him.  I  think  he  seemed  much 
struck  with  Theobald  and  myself — indeed,  Theobald's 
intellectual  power  must  impress  any  one,  and  I  was 
showing,  I  do  believe,  to  my  best  advantage.  When  I 
smiled  at  him  and  said  I  left  my  boy  in  his  hands  with 
the  most  entire  confidence  that  he  would  be  as  well  cared 
for  as  if  he  were  at  my  own  house,  I  am  sure  he  was 
greatly  pleased.  I  should  not  think  many  of  the  mothers 
who  bring  him  boys  can  impress  him  so  favourably,  or 
say  such  nice  things  to  him  as  I  did.  My  smile  is  sweet 
when  I  desire  to  make  it  so.  I  never  was  perhaps 
exactly  pretty,  but  I  was  always  admitted  to  be  fascinat- 
ing. Dr.  Skinner  is  a  very  handsome  man — too  good  on 
the  whole  I  should  say  for  Mrs.  Skinner.  Theobald  says 
he  is  not  handsome,  but  men  are  no  judges,  and  he  has 
such  a  pleasant,  bright  face  I  think  my  bonnet  became 
me.  As  soon  as  I  get  home  I  will  tell  Chambers  to 
trim  my  blue  and  yellow  merino  with "  etc.,  etc. 

All  this  time  the  letter  which  has  been  given  above  was 
lying  in  Christina's  private  little  Japanese  cabinet,  read 
and  re-read  and  approved  of  many  times  over,  not  to 
say,  if  the  truth  were  known,  rewritten  more  than  once, 
though  dated  as  in  the  first  instance — and  this,  too, 
though  Christina  was  fond  enough  of  a  joke  in  a  small 
way. 

Ernest,  still  in  Mrs.  Jay's  room,  mused  onward. 
"Grown-up  people,"  he  said  to  himself,  "when  they  were 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  never  did  naughty  things,  but  he 
was  always  doing  them.  He  had  heard  that  some  grown- 
up people  were  worldly,  which  of  course  was  wrong,  still 
this  was  quite  distinct  from  being  naughty,  and  did  not 
get  them  punished  or  scolded.  His  own  papa  and 
mamma  were  not  even  worldly;  they  had  often  ex- 
plained to  him  that  they  were  exceptionally  unworldly ; 
he  well  knew  that  they  had  never  done  anything  naughty 
since  they  had  been  children,  and  that  even  as  children 
they  had  been  nearly  faultless.  Oh !  how  different  from 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         141 

himself!  When  should  he  learn  to  love  his  papa  and 
mamma  as  they  had  loved  theirs?  How  could  he  hope 
ever  to  grow  up  to  be  as  good  and  wise  as  they,  or  even 
tolerably  good  and  wise  ?  Alas !  never.  It  could  not  be. 
He  did  not  love  his  papa  and  mamma,  in  spite  of  all  their 
goodness  both  in  themselves  and  to  him.  He  hated 
papa,  and  did  not  like  mamma,  and  this  was  what 
none  but  a  bad  and  ungrateful  boy  would  do  after 
all  that  had  been  done  for  him.  Besides,  he  did  not  like 
Sunday;  he  did  not  like  anything  that  was  really  good; 
his  tastes  were  low  and  such  as  he  was  ashamed  of. 
He  liked  people  best  if  they  sometimes  swore  a  little, 
so  long  as  it  was  not  at  him.  As  for  his  Catechism  and 
Bible  readings  he  had  no  heart  in  them.  He  had  never 
attended  to  a  sermon  in  his  life.  Even  when  he  had  been 
taken  to  hear  Mr.  Vaughan  at  Brighton,  who,  as  everyone 
knew,  preached  such  beautiful  sermons  for  children,  he 
had  been  very  glad  when  it  was  all  over,  nor  did  he 
believe  he  could  get  through  church  at  all  if  it  was  not 
for  the  voluntary  upon  the  organ  and  the  hymns  and 
chanting.  The  Catechism  was  awful.  He  had  never 
been  able  to  understand  what  it  was  that  he  desired  of 
his  Lord  God  and  Heavenly  Father,  nor  had  he  yet  got 
hold  of  a  single  idea  in  connection  with  the  word  Sacra- 
ment. His  duty  towards  his  neighbour  was  another  bug- 
bear. It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  duties  towards 
everybody,  lying  in  wait  for  him  upon  every  side,  but 
that  nobody  had  any  duties  towards  him.  Then  there 
was  that  awful  and  mysterious  word  'business.'  What 
did  it  all  mean?  What  was  'business'?  His  papa  was 
a  wonderfully  good  man  of  business,  his  mamma  had 
often  told  him  so — but  he  should  never  be  one.  It  was 
hopeless,  and  very  awful,  for  people  were  continually 
telling  him  that  he  would  have  to  earn  his  own  living. 
No  doubt,  but  how — considering  how  stupid,  idle,  ig- 
norant, self-indulgent,  and  physically  puny  he  was?  All 
grown-up  people  were  clever,  except  servants — and  even 


142         The  Way  of  All  Tlesh 

these  were  cleverer  than  ever  he  should  be.  Oh,  why, 
why,  why,  could  not  people  be  born  into  the  world  as 
grown-up  persons  ?  Then  he  thought  of  Casabianca.  He 
had  been  examined  in  that  poem  by  his  father  not  long  be- 
fore. 'When  only  would  he  leave  his  position  ?  To  whom 
did  he  call  ?  Did  he  get  an  answer  ?  Why  ?  How  many 
times  did  he  call  upon  his  father?  What  happened  to 
him?  What  was  the  noblest  life  that  perished  there? 
Do  you  think  so  ?  Why  do  you  think  so  ?'  And  all  the 
rest  of  it.  Of  course  he  thought  Casabianca's  was  the 
noblest  life  that  perished  there;  there  could  be  no  two 
opinions  about  that;  it  never  occurred  to  him  that  the 
moral  of  the  poem  was  that  young  people  cannot  begin 
too  soon  to  exercise  discretion  in  the  obedience  they 
pay  to  their  papa  and  mamma.  Oh,  no!  the  only 
thought  in  his  mind  was  that  he  should  never,  never 
have  been  like  Casabianca,  and  that  Casabianca  would 
have  despised  him  so  much,  if  he  could  have  known 
him,  that  he  would  not  have  condescended  to  speak  to 
him.  There  was  nobody  else  in  the  ship  worth  reckoning 
at  all :  it  did  not  matter  how  much  they  were  blown  up. 
Mrs.  Hemans  knew  them  all  and  they  were  a  very  in- 
different lot.  Besides,  Casabianca  was  so  good-looking 
and  came  of  such  a  good  family." 

And  thus  his  small  mind  kept  wandering  on  till  he 
could  follow  it  no  longer,  and  again  went  off  into  a  doze. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

NEXT  morning  Theobald  and  Christina  arose  feeling  a 
little  tired  from  their  journey,  but  happy  in  that  best  of 
all  happiness,  the  approbation  of  their  consciences.  It 
would  be  their  boy's  fault  henceforth  if  he  were  not 
good,  and  as  prosperous  as  it  was  at  all  desirable  that  he 
should  be.  What  more  could  parents  do  than  they  had 
done  ?  The  answer  "Nothing"  will  rise  as  readily  to  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         143 

lips  of  the  reader  as  to  those  of  Theobald  and  Christina 
themselves. 

A  few  days  later  the  parents  were  gratified  at  receiv- 
ing the  following  letter  from  their  son — 

"MY  DEAR  MAMMA, — I  am  very  well.  Dr.  Skinner 
made  me  do  about  the  horse  free  and  exulting  roaming 
in  the  wide  fields  in  Latin  verse,  but  as  I  had  done  it 
with  Papa  I  knew  how  to  do  it,  and  it  was  nearly  all 
right,  and  he  put  me  in  the  fourth  form  under  Mr. 
Templer,  and  I  have  to  begin  a  new  Latin  grammar  not 
like  the  old,  but  much  harder.  I  know  you  wish  me  to 
work,  and  I  will  try  very  hard.  With  best  love  to  Joey 
and  Charlotte,  and  to  Papa,  I  remain,  your  affectionate 
son,  ERNEST." 

Nothing  could  be  nicer  or  more  proper.  It  really  did 
seem  as  though  he  were  inclined  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf. 
The  boys  had  all  come  back,  the  examinations  were  over, 
and  the  routine  of  the  half  year  began;  Ernest  found 
that  his  fears  about  being  kicked  about  and  bullied  were 
exaggerated.  Nobody  did  anything  very  dreadful  to 
him.  He  had  to  run  errands  between  certain  hours  for 
the  elder  boys,  and  to  take  his  turn  at  greasing  the 
footballs,  and  so  forth,  but  there  was  an  excellent  spirit 
in  the  school  as  regards  bullying. 

Nevertheless,  he  was  far  from  happy.  Dr.  Skinner 
was  much  too  like  his  father.  True,  Ernest  was  not 
thrown  in  with  him  much  yet,  but  he  was  always  there; 
there  was  no  knowing  at  what  moment  he  might  not  put 
in  an  appearance,  and  whenever  he  did  show,  it  was  to 
storm  about  something.  He  was  like  the  lion  in  the 
Bishop  of  Oxford's  Sunday  story — always  liable  to  rush 
out  from  behind  some  bush  and  devour  some  one  when 
he  was  least  expected.  He  called  Ernest  "an  audacious 
reptile"  and  said  he  wondered  the  earth  did  not  open 
and  swallow  him  up  because  he  pronounced  Thalia  with 


144         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

a  short  i.  "And  this  to  me,"  he  thundered,  "who  never 
made  a  false  quantity  in  my  life."  Surely  he  would  have 
been  a  much  nicer  person  if  he  had  made  false  quantities 
in  his  youth  like  other  people.  Ernest  could  not  imagine 
how  the  boys  in  Dr.  Skinner's  form  continued  to  live; 
but  yet  they  did,  and  even  throve,  and,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  idolised  him,  or  professed  to  do  so  in  after  life. 
To  Ernest  it  seemed  like  living  on  the  crater  of 
Vesuvius. 

He  was  himself,  as  has  been  said,  in  Mr.  Templer's 
form,  who  was  snappish,  but  not  downright  wicked, 
and  was  very  easy  to  crib  under.  Ernest  used  to  wonder 
how  Mr.  Templer  could  be  so  blind,  for  he  supposed 
Mr.  Templer  must  have  cribbed  when  he  was  at  school, 
and  would  ask  himself  whether  he  should  forget  his 
youth  when  he  got  old,  as  Mr.  Templer  had  forgotten 
his.  He  used  to  think  he  never  could  possibly  forget 
any  part  of  it. 

Then  there  was  Mrs.  Jay,  who  was  sometimes  very 
alarming.  A  few  days  after  the  half  year  had  com- 
menced, there  being  some  little  extra  noise  in  the  hall, 
she  rushed  in  with  her  spectacles  on  her  forehead  and 
her  cap  strings  flying,  and  called  the  boy  whom  Ernest 
had  selected  as  his  hero  the  "rampingest-scampingest- 
rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringest  boy  in  the  whole 
school."  But  she  used  to  say  things  that  Ernest  liked. 
If -the  Doctor  went  out  to  dinner,  and  there  were  no 
prayers,  she  would  come  in  and  say,  "Young  gentlemen, 
prayers  are  excused  this  evening";  and,  take  her  for  all 
in  all,  she  was  a  kindly  old  soul  enough. 

Most  boys  soon  discover  the  difference  between  noise 
and  actual  danger,  but  to  others  it  is  so  unnatural  to 
menace,  unless  they  mean  mischief,  that  they  are  long 
before  they  leave  off  taking  turkey-cocks  and  ganders 
au  serieux.  Ernest  was  one  of  the  latter  sort,  and  found 
the  atmosphere  of  Roughborough  so  gusty  that  he  was 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          145 

glad  to  shrink  out  of  sight  and  out  of  mind  whenever 
he  could.  He  disliked  the  games  worse  even  than  the 
squalls  of  the  class-room  and  hall,  for  he  was  still 
feeble,  not  filling  out  and  attaining  his  full  strength  till 
a  much  later  age  than  most  boys.  This  was  perhaps  due 
to  the  closeness  with  which  his  father  had  kept  him  to 
his  books  in  childhood,  but  I  think  in  part  also  to  a 
tendency  towards  lateness  in  attaining  maturity,  heredi- 
tary in  the  Pontifex  family,  which  was  one  also  of 
unusual  longevity.  At  thirteen  or  fourteen  he  was  a 
mere  bag  of  bones,  with  upper  arms  about  as  thick  as 
the  wrists  of  other  boys  of  his  age;  his  little  chest  was 
pigeon-breasted ;  he  appeared  to  have  no  strength  or 
stamina  whatever,  and  finding  he  always  went  to  the  wall 
in  physical  encounters,  whether  undertaken  in  jest  or 
earnest,  even  with  boys  shorter  than  himself,  the  timidity 
natural  to  childhood  increased  upon  him  to  an  extent  that 
I  am  afraid  amounted  to  cowardice.  This  rendered  him 
even  less  capable  than  he  might  otherwise  have  been, 
for  as  confidence  increases  power,  so  want  of  confidence 
increases  impotence.  After  he  had  had  the  breath 
knocked  out  of  him  and  been  well  shinned  half  a  dozen 
times  in  scrimmages  at  football — scrimmages  in  which 
he  had  become  involved  sorely  against  his  will — he 
ceased  to  see  any  further  fun  in  football,  and  shirked 
that  noble  game  in  a  way  that  got  him  into  trouble  with 
the  elder  boys,  who  would  stand  no  shirking  on  the  part 
of  the  younger  ones. 

He  was  as  useless  and  ill  at  ease  with  cricket  as  with 
football,  nor  in  spite  of  all  his  efforts  could  he  ever 
throw  a  ball  or  a  stone.  It  soon  became  plain,  therefore, 
to  everyone  that  Pontifex  was  a  young  muff,  a  molly- 
coddle, not  to  be  tortured,  but  still  not  to  be  rated  highly. 
He  was  not,  however,  actively  unpopular,  for  it  was 
seen  that  he  was  quite  square  inter  pares,  not  at  all  vin- 
dictive, easily  pleased,  perfectly  free  with  whatever  little 


146         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

money  he  had,  no  greater  lover  of  his  school  work  than 
of  the  games,  and  generally  more  inclinable  to  moderate 
vice  than  to  immoderate  virtue. 

These  qualities  will  prevent  any  boy  from  sinking  very 
low  in  the  opinion  of  his  school-fellows;  but  Ernest 
thought  he  had  fallen  lower  than  he  probably  had,  and 
hated  and  despised  himself  for  what  he,  as  much  as 
anyone  else,  believed  to  be  his  cowardice.  He  did  not 
like  the  boys  whom  he  thought  like  himself.  His  heroes 
were  strong  and  vigorous,  and  the  less  they  inclined 
towards  him  the  more  he  worshipped  them.  All  this 
made  him  very  unhappy,  for  it  never  occurred  to  him 
that  the  instinct  which  made  him  keep  out  of  games  for 
which  he  was  ill  adapted,  was  more  reasonable  than  the 
reason  which  would  have  driven  him  into  them.  Never- 
theless he  followed  his  instinct  for  the  most  part,  rather 
than  his  reason.  Sapiens  suam  si  sapientiam  norit. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

WITH  the  masters  Ernest  was  ere  long  in  absolute  dis- 
grace. He  had  more  liberty  now  than  he  had  known 
heretofore.  The  heavy  hand  and  watchful  eye  of  Theo- 
bald were  no  longer  about  his  path  and  about  his  bed 
and  spying  out  all  his  ways ;  and  punishment  by  way  of 
copying  out  lines  of  Virgil  was  a  very  different  thing 
from  the  savage  beatings  of  his  father.  The  copying 
out  in  fact  was  often  less  trouble  than  the  lesson.  Latin 
and  Greek  had  nothing  in  them  .which  commended  them 
to  his  instinct  as  likely  to  bring  him  peace  even  at  the 
last;  still  less  did  they  hold  out  any  hope  of  doing  so 
within  some  more  reasonable  time.  The  deadness  in- 
herent in  these  defunct  languages  themselves  had  never 
been  artificially  counteracted  by  a  system  of  bona  fide 
rewards  for  application.  There  had  been  any  amount  of 
punishments  for  want  of  application,  but  no  good  com- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          147 

fortable  bribes  had  baited  the  hook  which  was  to  allure 
him  to  his  good. 

Indeed,  the  more  pleasant  side  of  learning  to  do  this 
or  that  had  always  been  treated  as  something  with  which 
Ernest  had  no  concern.  We  had  no  business  with  pleas- 
ant things  at  all,  at  any  rate  very  little  business,  at  any 
rate  not  he,  Ernest.  We  were  put  into  this  world  not 
for  pleasure  but  duty,  and  pleasure  had  in  it  something 
more  or  less  sinful  in  its  very  essence.  If  we  were  doing 
anything  we  liked,  we,  or  at  any  rate  he,  Ernest,  should 
apologise  and  think  he  was  being  very  mercifully  dealt 
with,  if  not  at  once  told  to  go  and  do  something  else. 
With  what  he  did  not  like,  however,  it  was  different; 
the  more  he  disliked  a  thing  the  greater  the  presumption 
that  it  was  right.  It  never  occurred  to  him  that  the  pre- 
sumption was  in  favour  of  the  Tightness  of  what  was 
most  pleasant,  and  that  the  onus  of  proving  that  it  was 
not  right  lay  with  those  who  disputed  its  being  so.  I 
have  said  more  than  once  that  he  believed  in  his  own 
depravity;  never  was  there  a  little  mortal  more  ready 
to  accept  without  cavil  whatever  he  was  told  by  those  who 
were  in  authority  over  him :  he  thought,  at  least,  that  he 
believed  it,  for  as  yet  he  knew  nothing  of  that  other 
Ernest  that  dwelt  within  him,  and  was  so  much  stronger 
and  more  real  than  the  Ernest  of  which  he  was  con- 
scious. The  dumb  Ernest  persuaded  with  inarticulate 
feelings  too  swift  and  sure  to  be  translated  into  such 
debatable  things  as  words,  but  practically  insisted  as 
follows — 

"Growing  is  not  the  easy,  plain  sailing  business  that  it 
is  commonly  supposed  to  be:  it  is  hard  work — harder 
than  any  but  a  growing  boy  can  understand;  it  requires 
attention,  and  you  are  not  strong  enough  to  attend  to 
your  bodily  growth,  and  to  your  lessons  too.  Besides, 
Latin  and  Greek  are  great  humbug;  the  more  people 
know  of  them  the  more  odious  they  generally  are;  the 
nice  people  whom  you  delight  in  either  never  knew  any 


148         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

at  all  or  forgot  what  they  had  learned  as  soon  as  they 
could ;  they  never  turned  to  the  classics  after  they  were 
no  longer  forced  to  read  them;  therefore  they  are  non- 
sense, all  very  well  in  their  own  time  and  country,  but 
out  of  place  here.  Never  learn  anything  until  you  find 
you  have  been  made  uncomfortable  for  a  good  long  while 
by  not  knowing  it ;  when  you  find  that  you  have  occasion 
for  this  or  that  knowledge,  or  foresee  that  you  will  have 
occasion  for  it  shortly,  the  sooner  you  learn  it  the  better, 
but  till  then  spend  your  time  in  growing  bone  and  muscle ; 
these  will  be  much  more  useful  to  you  than  Latin  and 
Greek,  nor  will  you  ever  be  able  to  make  them  if  you  do 
not  do  so  now,  whereas  Latin  and  Greek  can  be  acquired 
at  any  time  by  those  who  want  them. 

"You  are  surrounded  on  every  side  by  lies  which 
would  deceive  even  the  elect,  if  the  elect  were  not  gen- 
erally so  uncommonly  wide  awake ;  the  self  of  which  you 
are  conscious,  your  reasoning  and  reflecting  self,  will 
believe  these  lies  and  bid  you  act  in  accordance  with 
them.  This  conscious  self  of  yours,  Ernest,  is  a  prig 
begotten  of  prigs  and  trained  in  priggishness ;  I  will  not 
allow  it  to  shape  your  actions,  though  it  will  doubtless 
shape  your  words  for  many  a  year  to  come.  Your  papa 
is  not  here  to  beat  you  now;  this  is  a  change  in  the 
conditions  of  your  existence,  and  should  be  followed  by 
changed  actions.  Obey  me,  your  true  self,  and  things 
will  go  tolerably  well  with  you,  but  only  listen  to  that 
outward  and  visible  old  husk  of  yours  which  is  called 
your  father,  and  I  will  rend  you  in  pieces  even  unto  the 
third  and  fourth  generation  as  one  who  has  hated  God ; 
for  I,  Ernest,  am  the  God  who  made  you." 

How  shocked  Ernest  would  have  been  if  he  could  have 
heard  the  advice  he  was  receiving;  what  consternation 
too  there  would  have  been  at  Battersby;  but  the  matter 
did  not  end  here,  for  this  same  wicked  inner  self  gave 
him  bad  advice  about  his  pocket  money,  the  choice  of 
his  companions,  and  on  the  whole  Ernest  was  attentive 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         149 

and  obedient  to  its  behests,  more  so  than  Theobald  had 
been.  The  consequence  was  that  he  learned  little,  his 
mind  growing  more  slowly  and  his  body  rather  faster 
than  heretofore :  and  when  by  and  by  his  inner  self 
urged  him  in  directions  where  he  met  obstacles  beyond 
his  strength  to  combat,  he  took — though  with  passionate 
compunctions  of  conscience — the  nearest  course  to  the 
one  from  which  he  was  debarred  which  circumstances 
would  allow. 

It  may  be  guessed  that  Ernest  was  not  the  chosen 
friend  of  the  more  sedate  and  well-conducted  youths  then 
studying  at  Roughborough.  Some  of  the  less  desirable 
boys  used  to  go  to  public-houses  and  drink  more  beer 
than  was  good  for  them;  Ernest's  inner  self  can  hardly 
have  told  him  to  ally  himself  to  these  young  gentlemen, 
but  he  did  so  at  an  early  age,  and  was  sometimes  made 
pitiably  sick  by  an  amount  of  beer  which  would  have 
produced  no  effect  upon  a  stronger  boy.  Ernest's  inner 
self  must  have  interposed  at  this  point  and  told  him  that 
there  was  not  much  fun  in  this,  for  he  dropped  the  habit 
ere  it  had  taken  firm  hold  of  him,  and  never  resumed  it ; 
but  he  contracted  another  at  the  disgracefully  early  age 
of  between  thirteen  and  fourteen  which  he  did  not  relin- 
quish, though  to  the  present  day  his  conscious  self  keeps 
dinging  it  into  him  that  the  less  he  smokes  the  better. 

And  so  matters  went  on  till  my  hero  was  nearly  four- 
teen years  old.  If  by  that  time  he  was  not  actually  a 
young  blackguard,  he  belonged  to  a  debatable  class 
between  the  sub-reputable  and  the  upper  disreputable, 
with  perhaps  rather  more  leaning  to  the  latter  except  so 
far  as  vices  of  meanness  were  concerned,  from  which  he 
was  fairly  free.  I  gather  this  partly  from  what  Ernest 
has  told  me,  and  partly  from  his  school  bills  which  I 
remember  Theobald  showed  me  with  much  complaining. 
There  was  an  institution  at  Roughborough  called  the 
monthly  merit  money ;  the  maximum  sum  which  a  boy  of 
Ernest's  age  could  get  was  four  shillings  and  sixpence; 


150         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

several  boys  got  four  shillings  and  few  less  than  six- 
pence, but  Ernest  never  got  more  than  half-a-crown  and 
seldom  more  than  eighteen  pence;  his  average  would,  I 
should  think,  be  about  one  and  nine  pence,  which  was 
just  too  much  for  him  to  rank  among  the  downright  bad 
boys,  but  too  little  to  put  him  among  the  good  ones. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

I  MUST  now  return  to  Miss  Alethea  Pontifex,  of  whom 
I  have  said  perhaps  too  little  hitherto,  considering  how 
great  her  influence  upon  my  hero's  destiny  proved  to  be. 

On  the  death  of  her  father,  which  happened  when  she 
was  about  thirty-two  years  old,  she  parted  company  with 
her  sisters,  between  whom  and  herself  there  had  been 
little  sympathy,  and  came  up  to  London.  She  was  deter- 
mined, so  she  said,  to  make  the  rest  of  her  life  as  happy 
as  she  could,  and  she  had  clearer  ideas  about  the  best 
way  of  setting  to  work  to  do  this  than  women,  or  indeed 
men,  generally  have. 

Her  fortune  consisted,  as  I  have  said,  of  £5000,  which 
had  come  to  her  by  her  mother's  marriage  settlements, 
and  £  15,000  left  her  by  her  father,  over  both  which  sums 
she  had  now  absolute  control.  These  brought  her  in 
about  £900  a  year,  and  the  money  being  invested  in  none 
but  the  soundest  securities,  she  had  no  anxiety  about 
her  income.  She  meant  to  be  rich,  so  she  formed  a 
scheme  of  expenditure  which  involved  an  annual  outlay 
of  about  £500,  and  determined  to  put  the  rest  by.  "If  I 
do  this,"  she  said  laughingly,  "I  shall  probably  just  suc- 
ceed in  living  comfortably  within  my  income."  In  accord- 
ance with  this  scheme  she  took  unfurnished  apartments  in 
a  house  in  Gower  Street,  of  which  the  lower  floors  were 
let  out  as  offices.  John  Pontifex  tried  to  get  her  to  take 
a  house  to  herself,  but  Alethea  told  him  to  mind  his  own 
business  so  plainly  that  he  had  to  beat  a  retreat.  She  had 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         151 

never  liked  him,  and  from  that  time  dropped  him  almost 
entirely. 

Without  going  much  into  society  she  yet  became  ac- 
quainted with  most  of  the  men  and  women  who  had 
attained  a  position  in  the  literary,  artistic  and  scientific 
worlds,  and  it  was  singular  how  highly  her  opinion  was 
valued  in  spite  of  her  never  having  attempted  in  any  way 
to  distinguish  herself.  She  could  have  written  if  she  had 
chosen,  but  she  enjoyed  seeing  others  write  and  en- 
couraging them  better  than  taking  a  more  active  part 
herself.  Perhaps  literary  people  liked  her  all  the  better 
because  she  did  not  write. 

I,  as  she  very  well  knew,  had  always  been  devoted  to 
her,  and  she  might  have  had  a  score  of  other  admirers  if 
she  had  liked,  but  she  had  discouraged  them  all,  and 
railed  at  matrimony  as  women  seldom  do  unless  they 
have  a  comfortable  income  of  their  own.  She  by  no 
means,  however,  railed  at  man  as  she  railed  at  matri- 
mony, and  though  living  after  a  fashion  in  which  even 
the  most  censorious  could  find  nothing  to  complain  of, 
as  far  as  she  properly  could  she  defended  those  of  her 
own  sex  whom  the  world  condemned  most  severely. 

In  religion  she  was,  I  should  think,  as  nearly  a  free- 
thinker as  anyone  could  be  whose  mind  seldom  turned 
upon  the  subject.  She  went  to  church,  but  disliked 
equally  those  who  aired  either  religion  or  irreligion.  I 
remember  once  hearing  her  press  a  late  well-known 
philosopher  to  write  a  novel  instead  of  pursuing  his 
attacks  upon  religion.  The  philosopher  did  not  much 
like  this,  and  dilated  upon  the  importance  of  showing 
people  the  folly  of  much  that  they  pretended  to  believe. 
She  smiled  and  said  demurely,  "Have  they  not  Moses 
and  the  prophets?  Let  them  hear  them."  But  she 
would  say  a  wicked  thing  quietly  on  her  own  account 
sometimes,  and  called  my  attention  once  to  a  note  in  her 
prayer-book  which  gave  an  account  of  the  walk  to  Em- 
niaus  with  the  two  disciples,  and  how  Christ  had  said  tQ 


152          The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

them,  "O  fools  and  slow  of  heart  to  believe  ALL  that  the 
prophets  have  spoken" — the  "all"  being  printed  in  small 
capitals. 

Though  scarcely  on  terms  with  her  brother  John,  she 
had  kept  up  closer  relations  with  Theobald  and  his  fam- 
ily, and  had  paid  a  few  days'  visit  to  Battersby  once  in 
every  two  years  or  so.  Alethea  had  always  tried  to  like 
Theobald  and  join  forces  with  him  as  much  as  she  could 
(  for  they  two  were  the  hares  of  the  family,  the  rest  being 
all  hounds),  but  it  was  no  use.  I  believe  her  chief  rea- 
son for  maintaining  relations  with  her  brother  was  that 
she  might  keep  an  eye  on  his  children  and  give  them  a 
lift  if  they  proved  nice. 

When  Miss  Pontifex  had  come  down  to  Battersby  in 
old  times  the  children  had  not  been  beaten,  and  their 
lessons  had  been  made  lighter.  She  easily  saw  that  they 
were  overworked  and  unhappy,  but  she  could  hardly 
guess  how  all-reaching  was  the  regime  under  which  they 
lived.  She  knew  she  could  not  interfere  effectually  then, 
and  wisely  forebore  to  make  too  many  enquiries.  Her 
time,  if  ever  it  was  to  come,  would  be  when  the  children 
were  no  longer  living  under  the  same  roof  as  their  par- 
ents. It  ended  in  her  making  up  her  mind  to  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  either  Joey  or  Charlotte,  but  to  see  so 
much  of  Ernest  as  should  enable  her  to  form  an  opinion 
about  his  disposition  and  abilities. 

He  had  now  been  a  year  and  a  half  at  Roughborough 
and  was  nearly  fourteen  years  old,  so  that  his  character 
had  begun  to  shape.  His  aunt  had  not  seen  him  for  some 
little  time  and,  thinking  that  if  she  was  to  exploit  him 
she  could  do  so  now  perhaps  better  than  at  any  other 
time,  she  resolved  to  go  down  to  Roughborough  on  some 
pretext  which  should  be  good  enough  for  Theobald,  and 
to  take  stock  of  her  nephew  under  circumstances  in  which 
she  could  get  him  for  some  few  hours  to  herself.  Ac- 
cordingly in  August,  1849,  when  Ernest  was  just  enter- 
ing on  his  fourth  half  year  a  cab  drove  up  to  Dr.  Skin- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         153 

ner's  door  with  Miss  Pontifex,  who  asked  and  obtained 
leave  for  Ernest  to  come  and  dine  with  her  at  the  Swan 
Hotel.  She  had  written  to  Ernest  to  say  she  was  coming 
and  he  was  of  course  on  the  lookout  for  her.  He  had 
not  seen  her  for  so  long  that  he  was  rather  shy  at  first, 
but  her  good  nature  soon  set  him  at  his  ease.  She  was 
so  strongly  biassed  in  favour  of  anything  young  that  her 
heart  warmed  towards  him  at  once,  though  his  appear- 
ance was  less  prepossessing  than  she  had  hoped.  She 
took  him  to  a  cake  shop  and  gave  him  whatever  he  liked 
as  soon  as  she  had  got  him  off  the  school  premises ;  and 
Ernest  felt  at  once  that  she  contrasted  favourably  even 
with  his  aunts  the  Misses  Allaby,  who  were  so  very  sweet 
and  good.  The  Misses  Allaby  were  very  poor ;  sixpence 
was  to  them  what  five  shillings  was  to  Alethea.  What 
chance  had  they  against  one  who,  if  she  had  a  mind, 
could  put  by  out  of  her  income  twice  as  much  as  they, 
poor  women,  could  spend? 

The  boy  had  plenty  of  prattle  in  him  when  he  was  not 
snubbed,  and  Alethea  encouraged  him  to  chatter  about 
whatever  came  uppermost.  He  was  always  ready  to 
trust  anyone  who  was  kind  to  him;  it  took  many  years 
to  make  him  reasonably  wary  in  this  respect — if  indeed, 
as  I  sometimes  doubt,  he  ever  will  be  as  wary  as  he  ought 
to  be — and  in  a  short  time  he  had  quite  dissociated  his 
aunt  from  his  papa  and  mamma  and  the  rest,  with  whom 
his  instinct  told  him  he  should  be  on  his  guard.  Little 
did  he  know  how  great,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned,  were 
the  issues  that  depended  upon  his  behaviour.  If  he  had 
known,  he  would  perhaps  have  played  his  part  less  suc- 
cessfully. 

His  aunt  drew  from  him  more  details  of  his  home  and 
school  life  than  his  papa  and  mamma  would  have  ap- 
proved of,  but  he  had  no  idea  that  he  was  being  pumped. 
She  got  out  of  him  all  about  the  happy  Sunday  evenings, 
and  how  he  and  Joey  and  Charlotte  quarrelled  some- 
times, but  she  took  no  side  and  treated  everything  as 


154         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

though  it  were  a  matter  of  course.  Like  all  the  boys,  he 
could  mimic  Dr.  Skinner,  and  when  warmed  with  dinner, 
and  two  glasses  of  sherry  which  made  him  nearly  tipsy, 
he  favoured  his  aunt  with  samples  of  the  Doctor's  man- 
ner and  spoke  of  him  familiarly  as  "Sam." 

"Sam,"  he  said,  "is  an  awful  old  humbug."  It  was 
the  sherry  that  brought  out  this  piece  of  swagger,  for 
whatever  else  he  was  Dr.  Skinner  was  a  reality  to  Master 
Ernest,  before  which,  indeed,  he  sank  into  his  boots  in  no 
time.  Alethea  smiled  and  said,  "I  must  not  say  anything 
to  that,  must  I  ?"  Ernest  said,  "I  suppose  not,"  and  was 
checked.  By-and-by  he  vented  a  number  of  small  second- 
hand priggishnesses  which  he  had  caught  up  believing 
them  to  be  the  correct  thing,  and  made  it  plain  that  even 
at  that  early  age  Ernest  believed  in  Ernest  with  a  belief 
which  was  amusing  from  its  absurdity.  His  aunt  judged 
him  charitably,  as  she  was  sure  to  do ;  she  knew  very  well 
where  the  priggishness  came  from,  and  seeing  that  the 
string  of  his  tongue  had  been  loosened  sufficiently  gave 
him  no  more  sherry. 

It  was  after  dinner,  however,  that  he  completed  the 
conquest  of  his  aunt.  She  then  discovered  that,  like  her- 
self, he  was  passionately  fond  of  music,  and  that,  too, 
of  the  highest  class.  He  knew,  and  hummed  or  whistled 
to  her  all  sorts  of  pieces  out  of  the  works  of  the  great 
masters,  which  a  boy  of  his  age  could  hardly  be  expected 
to  know,  and  it  was  evident  that  this  was  purely  instinc- 
tive, inasmuch  as  music  received  no  kind  of  encourage- 
ment at  Roughborough.  There  was  no  boy  in  the  school 
as  fond  of  music  as  he  was.  He  picked  up  his  knowledge, 
he  said,  from  the  organist  of  St.  Michael's  Church,  who 
used  to  practise  sometimes  on  a  week-day  afternoon.  Er- 
nest had  heard  the  organ  booming  away  as  he  was  pass- 
ing outside  the  church  and  had  sneaked  inside  and  up 
into  the  organ  loft.  In  the  course  of  time  the  organist 
became  accustomed  to  him  as  a  familiar  visitant,  and 
the  pair  became  friends. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          155 

It  was  this  which  decided  Alethea  that  the  boy  was 
worth  taking  pains  with.  "He  likes  the  best  music," 
she  thought,  "and  he  hates  Dr.  Skinner.  This  is  a  very 
fair  beginning."  When  she  sent  him  away  at  night  with 
a  sovereign  in  his  pocket  (and  he  had  only  hoped  to  get 
five  shillings)  she  felt  as  though  she  had  had  a  good  deal 
more  than  her  money's  worth  for  her  money. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

NEXT  day  Miss  Pontifex  returned  to  town,  with  her 
thoughts  full  of  her  nephew  and  how  she  could  best  be 
of  use  to  him. 

It  appeared  to  her  that  to  do  him  any  real  service  she 
must  devote  herself  almost  entirely  to  him;  she  must  in 
fact  give  up  living  in  London,  at  any  rate  for  a  long 
time,  and  live  at  Roughborough  where  she  could  see  him 
continually.  This  was  a  serious  undertaking;  she  had 
lived  in  London  for  the  last  twelve  years,  and  naturally 
disliked  the  prospect  of  a  small  country  town  such  as 
Roughborough.  Was  it  a  prudent  thing  to  attempt  so 
much  ?  Must  not  people  take  their  chances  in  this  world  ? 
Can  anyone  do  much  for  anyone  else  unless  by  making 
a  will  in  his  favour  and  dying  then  and  there?  Should 
not  each  look  after  his  own  happiness,  and  will  not  the 
world  be  best  carried  on  if  everyone  minds  his  own  busi- 
ness and  leaves  other  people  to  mind  theirs  ?  Life  is  not 
a  donkey  race  in  which  everyone  is  to  ride  his  neighbour's 
donkey  and  the  last  is  to  win,  and  the  psalmist  long  since 
formulated  a  common  experience  when  he  declared  that 
no  man  may  deliver  his  brother  nor  make  agreement  unto 
God  for  him,  for  it  cost  more  to  redeem  their  souls,  so 
that  he  must  let  that  alone  for  ever. 

All  these  excellent  reasons  for  letting  her  nephew 
alone  occurred  to  her,  and  many  more,  but  against  them 
there  pleaded  a  woman's  love  for  children,  and  her  de- 


156         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

sire  to  find  someone  among  the  younger  branches  of  her 
own  family  to  whom  she  could  become  warmly  attached, 
and  whom  she  could  attach  warmly  to  herself. 

Over  and  above  this  she  wanted  someone  to  leave  her 
money  to;  she  was  not  going  to  leave  it  to  people  about 
whom  she  knew  very  little,  merely  because  they  hap- 
pened to  be  sons  and  daughters  of  brothers  and  sisters 
whom  she  had  never  liked.  She  knew  the  power  and 
value  of  money  exceedingly  well,  and  how  many  lovable 
people  suffer  and  die  yearly  for  the  want  of  it;  she  was 
little  likely  to  leave  it  without  being  satisfied  that  her 
legatees  were  square,  lovable,  and  more  or  less  hard  up. 
She  wanted  those  to  have  it  who  would  be  most  likely  to 
use  it  genially  and  sensibly,  and  whom  it  would  thus  be 
likely  to  make  most  happy;  if  she  could  find  one  such 
among  her  nephews  and  nieces,  so  much  the  better;  it 
was  worth  taking  a  great  deal  of  pains  to  see  whether 
she  could  or  could  not;  but  if  she  failed,  she  must  find 
an  heir  who  was  not  related  to  her  by  blood. 

"Of  course,"  she  had  said  to  me,  more  than  once,  "I 
shall  make  a  mess  of  it.  I  shall  choose  some  nice-look- 
ing, well-dressed  screw,  with  gentlemanly  manners  which 
will  take  me  in,  and  he  will  go  and  paint  Academy  pic- 
tures, or  write  for  the  Times,  or  do  something  just  as 
horrid  the  moment  the  breath  is  out  of  my  body." 

As  yet,  however,  she  had  made  no  will  at  all,  and  this 
was  one  of  the  few  things  that  troubled  her.  1  believe 
she  would  have  left  most  of  her  money  to  me  if  I  had 
not  stopped  her.  My  father  left  me  abundantly  well  off, 
and  my  mode  of  life  has  been  always  simple,  so  that  I 
have  never  known  uneasiness  about  money;  moreover  I 
was  especially  anxious  that  there  should  be  no  occasion 
given  for  ill-natured  talk ;  she  knew  well,  therefore,  that 
her  leaving  her  money  to  me  would  be  of  all  things  the 
most  likely  to  weaken  the  ties  that  existed  between  us, 
provided  that  I  was  aware  of  it,  but  I  did  not  mind  her 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         157 

talking  about  whom  she  should  make  her  heir,  so  long 
as  it  was  well  understood  that  I  was  not  to  be  the  person. 

Ernest  had  satisfied  her  as  having  enough  in  him  to 
tempt  her  strongly  to  take  him  up,  but  it  was  not  till 
after  many  days'  reflection  that  she  gravitated  towards 
actually  doing  so,  with  all  the  break  in  her  daily  ways 
that  this  would  entail.  At  least,  she  said  it  took  her 
some  days,  and  certainly  it  appeared  to  do  so,  but  from 
the  moment  she  had  begun  to  broach  the  subject,  I  had 
guessed  how  things  were  going  to  end. 

It  was  now  arranged  she  should  take  a  house  at 
Roughborough,  and  go  and  live  there  for  a  couple  of 
years.  As  a  compromise,  however,  to  meet  some  of  my 
objections,  it  was  also  arranged  that  she  should  keep 
her  rooms  in  Gower  Street,  and  come  to  town  for  a  week 
once  in  each  month ;  of  course,  also,  she  would  leave 
Roughborough  for  the  greater  part  of  the  holidays.  Af- 
ter two  years,  the  thing  was  to  come  to  an  end,  unless 
it  proved  a  great  success.  She  should  by  that  time,  at 
any  rate,  have  made  up  her  mind  what  the  boy's  char- 
acter was,  and  would  then  act  as  circumstances  might 
determine. 

The  pretext  she  put  forward  ostensibly  was  that  her 
doctor  said  she  ought  to  be  a  year  or  two  in  the  country 
after  so  many  years  of  London  life,  and  had  recom- 
mended Roughborough  on  account  of  the  purity  of  its 
air,  and  its  easy  access  to  and  from  London — for  by  this 
time  the  railway  had  reached  it.  She  was  anxious  not 
to  give  her  brother  and  sister  any  right  to  complain,  if 
on  seeing  more  of  her  nephew  she  found  she  could  not 
get  on  with  him,  and  she  was  also  anxious  not  to  raise 
false  hopes  of  any  kind  in  the  boy's  own  mind. 

Having  settled  how  everything  was  to  be,  she  wrote  to 
Theobald  and  said  she  meant  to  take  a  house  in  Rough- 
borough  from  the  Michaelmas  then  approaching,  and 
mentioned,  as  though  casually,  that  one  of  the  attractions 


158         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

of  the  place  would  be  that  her  nephew  was  at  school 
there  and  she  should  hope  to  see  more  of  him  than  she 
had  done  hitherto. 

Theobald  and  Christina  knew  how  dearly  Alethea 
loved  London,  and  thought  it  very  odd  that  she  should 
want  to  go  and  live  at  Roughborough,  but  they  did  not 
suspect  that  she  was  going  there  solely  on  her  nephew's 
account,  much  less  that  she  had  thought  of  making  Ernest 
her  heir.  If  they  had  guessed  this,  they  would  have  been 
so  jealous  that  I  half  believe  they  would  have  asked  her 
to  go  and  live  somewhere  else.  Alethea,  however,  was 
two  or  three  years  younger  than  Theobald ;  she  was  still 
some  years  short  of  fifty,  and  might  very  well  live  to 
eighty-five  or  ninety;  her  money,  therefore,  was  not 
worth  taking  much  trouble  about,  and  her  brother  and 
sister-in-law  had  dismissed  it,  so  to  speak,  from  their 
minds  with  costs,  assuming,  however,  that  if  anything 
did  happen  to  her  while  they  were  still  alive,  the  money 
would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  come  to  them. 

The  prospect  of  Alethea  seeing  much  of  Ernest  was  a 
serious  matter.  Christina  smelt  mischief  from  afar,  as 
indeed  she  often  did.  Alethea  was  worldly — as  worldly, 
that  is  to  say,  as  a  sister  of  Theobald's  could  be.  In  her 
letter  to  Theobald  she  had  said  she  knew  how  much  of 
his  and  Christina's  thoughts  were  taken  up  with  anxiety 
for  the  boy's  welfare.  Alethea  had  thought  this  hand- 
some enough,  but  Christina  had  wanted  something  better 
and  stronger.  "How  can  she  know  how  much  we  think 
of  our  darling?"  she  had  exclaimed,  when  Theobald 
showed  her  his  sister's  letter.  "I  think,  my  dear,  Alethea 
would  understand  these  things  better  if  she  had  children 
of  her  own."  The  least  that  would  have  satisfied  Chris- 
tina was  to  have  been  told  that  there  never  yet  had  been 
any  parents  comparable  to  Theobald  and  herself.  She 
did  not  feel  easy  that  an  alliance  of  some  kind  would 
not  grow  up  between  aunt  and  nephew,  and  neither  she 
nor  Theobald  wanted  Ernest  to  have  any  allies.  Joey 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          159 

and  Charlotte  were  quite  as  many  allies  as  were  good 
for  him.  After  all,  however,  if  Alethea  chose  to  go  and 
live  at  Roughborough,  they  could  not  well  stop  her,  and 
must  make  the  best  of  it. 

In  a  few  weeks'  time  Alethea  did  choose  to  go  and 
live  at  Roughborough.  A  house  was  found  with  a  field 
and  a  nice  little  garden  which  suited  her  very  well.  "At 
any  rate,"  she  said  to  herself,  "I  will  have  fresh  eggs 
and  flowers."  She  even  considered  the  question  of  keep- 
ing a  cow,  but  in  the  end  decided  not  to  do  so.  She  fur- 
nished her  house  throughout  anew,  taking  nothing  what- 
ever from  her  establishment  in  Gower  Street,  and  by 
Michaelmas — for  the  house  was  empty  when  she  took  it 
— she  was  settled  comfortably,  and  had  begun  to  make 
herself  at  home. 

One  of  Miss  Pontifex's  first  moves  was  to  ask  a  dozen 
of  the  smartest  and  most  gentlemanly  boys  to  breakfast 
with  her.  From  her  seat  in  church  she  could  see  the  faces 
of  the  upper-form  boys,  and  soon  made  up  her  mind 
which  of  them  it  would  be  best  to  cultivate.  Miss  Ponti- 
fex,  sitting  opposite  the  boys  in  church,  and  reckoning 
them  up  with  her  keen  eyes  from  under  her  veil  by  all 
a  woman's  criteria,  came  to  a  truer  conclusion  about  the 
greater  number  of  those  she  scrutinized  than  even  Dr. 
Skinner  had  done.  She  fell  in  love  with  one  boy  from 
seeing  him  put  on  his  gloves. 

Miss  Pontifex,  as  I  have  said,  got  hold  of  some  of 
these  youngsters  through  Ernest,  and  fed  them  well.  No 
boy  can  resist  being  fed  well  by  a  good-natured  and  still 
handsome  woman.  Boys  are  very  like  nice  dogs  in  this 
respect — give  them  a  bone  and  they  will  like  you  at  once. 
Alethea  employed  every  other  little  artifice  which  she 
thought  likely  to  win  their  allegiance  to  herself,  and 
through  this  their  countenance  for  her  nephew.  She 
found  the  football  club  in  a  slight  money  difficulty  and 
at  once  gave  half  a  sovereign  towards  its  removal.  The 
boys  had  no  chance  against  her,  she  shot  them  down  one 


160         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

after  another  as  easily  as  though  they  had  been  roosting 
pheasants.  Nor  did  she  escape  scathless  herself,  for,  as 
she  wrote  to  me,  she  quite  lost  her  heart  to  half  a  dozen 
of  them.  "How  much  nicer  they  are,"  she  said,  "and 
how  much  more  they  know  than  those  who  profess  to 
teach  them!" 

I  believe  it  has  been  lately  maintained  that  it  is  the 
young  and  fair  who  are  the  truly  old  and  truly  experi- 
enced, inasmuch  as  it  is  they  who  alone  have  a  living 
memory  to  guide  them;  "the  whole  charm,"  it  has  been 
said,  "of  youth  lies  in  its  advantage  over  age  in  respect 
of  experience,  and  when  this  has  for  some  reason  failed 
or  been  misapplied,  the  charm  is  broken.  When  we  say 
that  we  are  getting  old,  we  should  say  rather  that  we 
are  getting  new  or  young,  and  are  suffering  from  inex- 
perience; trying  to  do  things  which  we  have  never  done 
before,  and  failing  worse  and  worse,  till  in  the  end 
we  are  landed  in  the  utter  impotence  of  death." 

Miss  Pontifex  died  many  a  long  year  before  the  above 
passage  was  written,  but  she  had  arrived  independently 
at  much  the  same  conclusion. 

She  first,  therefore,  squared  the  boys.  Dr.  Skinner 
was  even  more  easily  dealt  with.  He  and  Mrs.  Skinner 
called,  as  a  matter  of  course,  as  soon  as  Miss  Pontifex 
was  settled.  She  fooled  him  to  the  top  of  his  bent,  and 
obtained  the  promise  of  a  MS.  copy  of  one  of  his  minor 
poems  (for  Dr.  Skinner  had  the  reputation  of  being 
quite  one  of  our  most  facile  and  elegant  minor  poets)  on 
the  occasion  of  his  first  visit.  The  other  masters  and 
masters'  wives  were  not  forgotten.  Alethea  laid  herself 
out  to  please,  as  indeed  she  did  wherever  she  went,  and  if 
any  woman  lays  herself  out  to  do  this,  she  generally 
succeeds. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         161 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

Miss  PONTIFEX  soon  found  out  that  Ernest  did  not  like 
games,  but  she  saw  also  that  he  could  hardly  be  expected 
to  like  them.  He  was  perfectly  well  shaped  but  unusually 
devoid  of  physical  strength.  He  got  a  fair  share  of  this 
in  after  life,  but  it  came  much  later  with  him  than  with 
other  boys,  and  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing  he  was 
a  mere  little  skeleton.  He  wanted  something  to  develop 
his  arms  and  chest  without  knocking  him  about  as  much 
as  the  school  games  did.  To  supply  this  want  by  some 
means  which  should  add  also  to  his  pleasure  was  Ale- 
thea's  first  anxiety.  Rowing  would  have  answered  every 
purpose,  but  unfortunately  there  was  no  river  at  Rough- 
borough. 

Whatever  it  was  to  be,  it  must  be  something  which 
he  should  like  as  much  as  other  boys  liked  cricket  or  foot- 
ball, and  he  must  think  the  wish  for  it  to  have  come  orig- 
inally from  himself ;  it  was  not  very  easy  to  find  anything 
that  would  do,  but  ere  long  it  occurred  to  her  that  she 
might  enlist  his  love  of  music  on  her  side,  and  asked 
him  one  day  when  he  was  spending  a  half-holiday  at  her 
house  whether  he  would  like  her  to  buy  an  organ  for  him 
to  play  on.  Of  course,  the  boy  said  yes;  then  she  told 
him  about  her  grandfather  and  the  organs  he  had  built. 
It  had  never  entered  into  his  head  that  he  could  make 
one,  but  when  he  gathered  from  what  his  aunt  had  said 
that  this  was  not  out  of  the  question,  he  rose  as  eagerly 
to  the  bait  as  she  could  have  desired,  and  wanted  to  be- 
gin learning  to  saw  and  plane  so  that  he  might  make  the 
wooden  pipes  at  once. 

Miss  Pontifex  did  not  see  how  she  could  have  hit 
upon  anything  more  suitable,  and  she  liked  the  idea  that 
he  would  incidentally  get  a  knowledge  of  carpentering, 
for  she  was  impressed,  perhaps  foolishly,  with  the  wis- 


162         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

dom  of  the  German  custom  which  gives  every  boy  a 
handicraft  of  some  sort. 

Writing  to  me  on  this  matter,  she  said,  "Professions  are 
all  very  well  for  those  who  have  connection  and  interest 
as  well  as  capital,  but  otherwise  they  are  white  elephants. 
How  many  men  do  not  you  and  I  know  who  have  talent, 
assiduity,  excellent  good  sense,  straightforwardness, 
every  quality  in  fact  which  should  command  success,  and 
who  yet  go  on  from  year  to  year  waiting  and  hoping 
against  hope  for  the  work  which  never  comes?  How, 
indeed,  is  it  likely  to  come  unless  to  those  who  either  are 
born  with  interest,  or  who  marry  in  order  to  get  it? 
Ernest's  father  and  mother  have  no  interest,  and  if  they 
had  they  would  not  use  it.  I  suppose  they  will  make  him 
a  clergyman,  or  try  to  do  so — perhaps  it  is  the  best  thing 
to  do  with  him,  for  he  could  buy  a  living  with  the  money 
his  grandfather  left  him,  but  there  is  no  knowing  what 
the  boy  will  think  of  it  when  the  time  comes,  and  for 
aught  we  know  he  may  insist  on  going  to  the  backwoods 
of  America,  as  so  many  other  young  men  are  doing 
now."  .  .  .  But,  anyway,  he  would  like  making  an  organ, 
and  this  could  do  him  no  harm,  so  the  sooner  he  began 
the  better. 

Alethea  thought  it  would  save  trouble  in  the  end  if  she 
told  her  brother  and  sister-in-law  of  this  scheme.  "I  do 
not  suppose,"  she  wrote,  "that  Dr.  Skinner  will  approve 
very  cordially  of  my  attempt  to  introduce  organ-building 
into  the  curriculum  of  Roughborough,  but  I  will  see  what 
I  can  do  with  him,  for  I  have  set  my  heart  on  owning  an 
organ  built  by  Ernest's  own  hands,  which  he  may  play 
on  as  much  as  he  likes  while  it  remains  in  my  house  and 
which  I  will  lend  him  permanently  as  soon  as  he  gets 
one  of  his  own,  but  which  is  to  be  my  property  for  the 
present,  inasmuch  as  I  mean  to  pay  for  it."  This  was 
put  in  to  make  it  plain  to  Theobald  and  Christina  that 
they  should  not  be  out  of  pocket  in  the  matter. 

If  Alethea  had  been  as  poor  as  the  Misses  Allaby,  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         163 

reader  may  guess  what  Ernest's  papa  and  mamma  would 
have  said  to  this  proposal;  but  then,  if  she  had  been  as 
poor  as  they,  she  would  never  have  made  it.  They  did 
not  like  Ernest's  getting  more  and  more  into  his  aunt's 
good  books ;  still  it  was  perhaps  better  that  he  should  do 
so  than  that  she  should  be  driven  back  upon  the  John 
Pontifexes.  The  only  thing,  said  Theobald,  which  made 
him  hesitate,  was  that  the  boy  might  be  thrown  with  low 
associates  later  on  if  he  were  to  be  encouraged  in  his 
taste  for  music — a  taste  which  Theobald  had  always  dis- 
liked. He  had  observed  with  regret  that  Ernest  had  ere 
now  shown  rather  a  hankering  after  low  company,  and 
he  might  make  acquaintance  with  those  who  would  cor- 
rupt his  innocence.  Christina  shuddered  at  this,  but  when 
they  had  aired  their  scruples  sufficiently  they  felt  (and 
when  people  begin  to  "feel,"  they  are  invariably  going 
to  take  what  they  believe  to  be  the  more  worldly  course) 
that  to  oppose  Alethea's  proposal  would  be  injuring  their 
son's  prospects  more  than  was  right,  so  they  consented, 
but  not  too  graciously. 

After  a  time,  however,  Christina  got  used  to  the  idea, 
and  then  considerations  occurred  to  her  which  made  her 
throw  herself  into  it  with  characteristic  ardour.  If  Miss 
Pontifex  had  been  a  railway  stock  she  might  have  been 
said  to  have  been  buoyant  in  the  Battersby  market  for 
some  few  days ;  buoyant  for  long  together  she  could  never 
be,  still  for  a  time  there  really  was  an  upward  movement. 
Christina's  mind  wandered  to  the  organ  itself;  she 
seemed  to  have  made  it  with  her  own  hands ;  there  would 
be  no  other  in  England  to  compare  with  it  for  combined 
sweetness  and  power.  She  already  heard  the  famous 
Dr.  Walmisley  of  Cambridge  mistaking  it  for  a  Father 
Smith.  It  would  come,  no  doubt,  in  reality  to  Battersby 
Church,  which  wanted  an  organ,  for  it  must  be  all  non- 
sense about  Alethea's  wishing  to  keep  it,  and  Ernest 
would  not  have  a  house  of  his  own  for  ever  so  many 
years,  and  they  could  never  have  it  at  the  Rectory.  Oh, 


no !    Battersby  Church  was  the  only  proper  place  for  it. 

Of  course,  they  would  have  a  grand  opening,  and  the 
Bishop  would  come  down,  and  perhaps  young  Figgins 
might  be  on  a  visit  to  them — she  must  ask  Ernest  if 
young  Figgins  had  yet  left  Roughborough — he  might 
even  persuade  his  grandfather,  Lord  Lonsford,  to  be  pres- 
ent. Lord  Lonsford  and  the  Bishop  and  everyone  else 
would  then  compliment  her,  and  Dr.  Wesley  or  Dr. 
Walmisley,  who  should  preside  (it  did  not  much  matter 
which),  would  say  to  her,  "My  dear  Mrs.  Pontifex,  I 
never  yet  played  upon  so  remarkable  an  instrument." 
Then  she  would  give  him  one  of  her  very  sweetest  smiles 
and  say  she  feared  he  was  flattering  her,  on  which  he 
would  rejoin  with  some  pleasant  little  trifle  about  re- 
markable men  (the  remarkable  man  being  for  the  mo- 
ment Ernest)  having  invariably  had  remarkable  women 
for  their  mothers — and  so  on  and  so  on.  The  advantages 
of  doing  one's  praising  for  oneself  is  that  one  can  lay  it  I 
on  so  thick  and  exactly  in  the  right  places. 

Theobald  wrote  Ernest  a  short  and  surly  letter 
a  propos  of  his  aunt's  intentions  in  this  matter. 

"I  will  not  commit  myself,"  he  said,  "to  an  opinion 
whether  anything  will  come  of  it;  this  will  depend  en- 
tirely upon  your  own  exertions;  you  have  had  singular 
advantages  hitherto,  and  your  kind  aunt  is  showing  ever} 
desire  to  befriend  you,  but  you  must  give  greater  proof 
of  stability  and  steadiness  of  character  than  you  have 
given  yet  if  this  organ  matter  is  not  to  prove  in  the  end 
to  be  only  one  disappointment  the  more. 

"I  must  insist  on  two  things :  firstly,  that  this  new  iron 
in  the  fire  does  not  distract  your  attention  from  your 
Latin  and  Greek" — ("They  aren't  mine,"  thought  Ernest, 
"and  never  have  been") — "and  secondly,  that  you  bring 
no  smell  of  glue  or  shavings  into  the  house  here,  if  you 
make  any  part  of  the  organ  during  your  holidays." 

Ernest  was  still  too  young  to  know  how  unpleasant  a 
letter  he  was  receiving.  He  believed  the  innuendoes  con- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         165 

tained  in  it  to  be  perfectly  just.  He  knew  he  was  sadly 
deficient  in  perseverance.  He  liked  some  things  for  a 
little  while,  and  then  found  he  did  not  like  them  any 
more — and  this  was  as  bad  as  anything  well  could  be. 
His  father's  letter  gave  him  one  of  his  many  fits  of  mel- 
ancholy over  his  own  worthlessness,  but  the  thought  of 
the  organ  consoled  him,  and  he  felt  sure  that  here  at  any 
rate  was  something  to  which  he  could  apply  himself 
steadily  without  growing  tired  of  it. 

It  was  settled  that  the  organ  was  not  to  be  begun 
before  the  Christmas  holidays  were  over,  and  that  till 
then  Ernest  should  do  a  little  plain  carpentering,  so  as 
to  get  to  know  how  to  use  his  tools.  Miss  Pontifex  had 
a  carpenter's  bench  set  up  in  an  outhouse  upon  her  own 
premises,  and  made  terms  with  the  most  respectable  car- 
penter in  Roughborough,  by  which  one  of  his  men  was  to 
come  for  a  couple  of  hours  twice  a  week  and  set  Ernest 
on  the  right  way ;  then  she  discovered  she  wanted  this  or 
that  simple  piece  of  work  done,  and  gave  the  boy  a  com- 
mission to  do  it,  paying  him  handsomely  as  well  as  find- 
ing him  in  tools  and  materials.  She  never  gave  him  a 
syllable  of  good  advice,  or  talked  to  him  about  every- 
thing's depending  upon  his  own  exertions,  but  she  kissed 
him  often,  and  would  come  into  the  workshop  and  act 
the  part  of  one  who  took  an  interest  in  what  was  being 
done  so  cleverly  as  ere  long  to  become  really  interested. 

What  boy  would  not  take  kindly  to  almost  anything 
with  such  assistance?  All  boys  like  making  things;  the 
exercise  of  sawing,  planing  and  hammering,  proved  ex- 
actly what  his  aunt  had  wanted  to  find — 'something  that 
should  exercise,  but  not  too  much,  and  at  the  same  time 
amuse  him ;  when  Ernest's  sallow  face  was  flushed  with 
his  work,  and  his  eyes  were  sparkling  with  pleasure,  he 
looked  quite  a  different  boy  from  the  one  his  aunt  had 
taken  in  hand  only  a  few  months  earlier.  His  inner 
self  never  told  him  that  this  was  humbug,  as  it  did  about 
Latin  and  Greek.  Making  tools  and  drawers  was  worth 


166         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

living  for,  and  after  Christmas  there  loomed  the  organ, 
which  was  scarcely  ever  absent  from  his  mind. 

His  aunt  let  him  invite  his  friends,  encouraging  him 
to  bring  those  whom  her  quick  sense  told  her  were  the 
most  desirable.  She  smartened  him  up  also  in  his  per- 
sonal appearance,  always  without  preaching  to  him.  In- 
deed she  worked  wonders  during  the  short  time  that 
was  allowed  her,  and  if  her  life  had  been  spared  I  cannot 
think  that  my  hero  would  have  come  under  the  shadow 
of  that  cloud  which  cast  so  heavy  a  gloom  over  his 
younger  manhood ;  but  unfortunately  for  him  his  gleam 
of  sunshine  was  too  hot  and  too  brilliant  to  last,  and  he 
had  many  a  storm  yet  to  weather,  before  he  became  fairly 
happy.  For  the  present,  however,  he  was  supremely  so, 
and  his  aunt  was  happy  and  grateful  for  his  happiness, 
the  improvement  she  saw  in  him,  and  his  unrepressed 
affection  for  herself.  She  became  fonder  of  him  from 
day  to  day  in  spite  of  his  many  faults  and  almost  incredi- 
ble foolishnesses.  It  was  perhaps  on  account  of  these 
very  things  that  she  saw  how  much  he  had  need  of  her ; 
but  at  any  rate,  from  whatever  cause,  she  became 
strengthened  in  her  determination  to  be  to  him  in  the 
place  of  parents,  and  to  find  in  him  a  son  rather  than  a 
nephew.  But  still  she  made  no  will. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

ALL  went  well  for  the  first  part  of  the  following  half 
year.  Miss  Pontifex  spent  the  greater  part  of  her  holi- 
days in  London,  and  I  also  saw  her  at  Roughborough, 
where  I  spent  a  few  days,  staying  at  the  "Swan."  I 
heard  all  about  my  godson  in  whom,  however,  I  took 
less  interest  than  I  said  I  did.  I  took  more  interest  in 
the  stage  at  that  time  than  in  anything  else,  and  as  for 
Ernest,  I  found  him  a  nuisance  for  engrossing  so  much 
of  his  aunt's  attention,  and  taking  her  so  much  from 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          167 

London.  The  organ  was  begun,  and  made  fair  progress 
during  the  first  two  months  of  the  half  year.  Ernest 
was  happier  than  he  had  ever  been  before,  and  was  strug- 
gling upwards.  The  best  boys  took  more  notice  of  him 
for  his  aunt's  sake,  and  he  consorted  less  with  those 
who  led  him  into  mischief. 

But  much  as  Miss  Pontifex  had  done,  she  could  not 
all  at  once  undo  the  effect  of  such  surroundings  as  the 
boy  had  had  at  Battersby.  Much  as  he  feared  and  dis- 
liked his  father  (though  he  still  knew  not  how  much  this 
was),  he  had  caught  much  from  him;  if  Theobald  had 
been  kinder  Ernest  would  have  modelled  himself  upon 
him  entirely,  and  ere  long  would  probably  have  become 
as  thorough  a  little  prig  as  could  have  easily  been  found. 

Fortunately  his  temper  had  come  to  him  from  his 
mother,  wlio,  when  not  frightened,  and  when  there  was 
nothing  0^1  the  horizon  which  might  cross  the  slightest 
whim  or  her  husband,  was  an  amiable,  good-natured 
woman.  If  it  was  not  such  an  awful  thing  to  say  of  any- 
one, I  should  say  that  she  meant  well. 

Ernest  had  also  inherited  his  mother's  love  of  building 
castles  in  the  air,  and — soT  suppose  it  must  be  called — 
her  vanity.  He  was  very  fond  of  showing  off,  and,  pro- 
vided he  could  attract  attention,  cared  little  from  whom 
it  came,  nor  what  it  was  for.  He  caught  up,  parrot-like, 
whatever  jargon  he  heard  from  his  elders,  which  he 
thought  was  the  correct  thing,  and  aired  it  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  as  though  it  were  his  own. 

Miss  Pontifex  was  old  enough  and  wise  enough  to 
know  that  this  is  the  way  in  which  even  the  greatest  men 
as  a  general  rule  begin  to  develop,  and  was  more  pleased 
with  his  receptiveness  and  reproductiveness  than  alarmed 
at  the  things  he  caught  and  reproduced. 

She  saw  that  he  was  much  attached  to  herself,  and 
trusted  to  this  rather  than  to  anything  else.  She  saw 
also  that  his  conceit  was  not  very  profound,  and  that  his 
fits  of  self-abasement  were  as  extreme  as  his  exaltation 


168         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

had  been.  His  impulsiveness  and  sanguine  trustfulness 
in  anyone  who  smiled  pleasantly  at  him,  or  indeed  was 
not  absolutely  unkind  to  him,  made  her  more  anxious 
about  him  than  any  other  point  in  his  character ;  she  saw 
clearly  that  he  would  have  to  find  himself  rudely  unde- 
ceived many  a  time  and  oft,  before  he  would  learn  to 
distinguish  friend  from  foe  within  reasonable  time.  It 
was  her  perception  of  this  which  led  her  to  take  the  action 
which  she  was  so  soon  called  upon  to  take. 

Her  health  was  for  the  most  part  excellent,  and  she 
had  never  had  a  serious  illness  in  her  life.  One  morning 
however,  soon  after  Easter,  1850,  she  awoke  feeling  seri- 
ously unwell.  For  some  little  time  there  had  been  a  talk 
of  fever  in  the  neighbourhood,  but  in  those  days  the  pre- 
cautions that  ought  to  be  taken  against  the  spread  of  in- 
fection were  not  so  well  understood  as  now,  and  nobody 
did  anything.  In  a  day  or  two  it  became  plain  that  Miss 
Pontifex  had  got  an  attack  of  typhoid  fever  and  was  dan- 
gerously ill.  On  this  she  sent  off  a  messenger  to  town, 
and  desired  him  not  to  return  without  her  lawyer  and 
myself. 

We  arrived  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  on  which  we 
had  been  summoned,  and  found  her  still  free  from  de- 
lirium: indeed,  the  cheery  way  in  which  she  received  us 
made  it  difficult  to  think  she  could  be  in  danger.  She  at 
once  explained  her  wishes,  which  had  reference,  as  I 
expected,  to  her  nephew,  and  repeated  the  substance  of 
what  I  have  already  referred  to  as  her  main  source  of 
uneasiness  concerning  him.  Then  she  begged  me  by  our 
long  and  close  intimacy,  by  the  suddenness  of  the  danger 
that  had  fallen  on  her  and  her  powerlessness  to  avert  it, 
to  undertake  what  she  said  she  well  knew,  if  she  died, 
would  be  an  unpleasant  and  invidious  trust. 

She  wanted  to  leave  the  bulk  of  her  money  ostensibly 
to  me,  but  in  reality  to  her  nephew,  so  that  I  should  hold 
it  in  trust  for  him  till  he  was  twenty-eight  years  old,  but 
neither  he  nor  anyone  else,  except  her  lawyer  and  myself, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         169 

was  to  know  anything  about  it.  She  would  leave  £5000 
in  other  legacies,  and  £15,000  to  Ernest — which  by  the 
time  he  was  twenty-eight  would  have  accumulated  to, 
say,  £30,000.  "Sell  out  the  debentures,"  she  said,  "where 
the  money  now  is — and  put  it  into  Midland  Ordinary. 

"Let  him  make  his  mistakes,"  she  said,  "upon  the 
money  his  grandfather  left  him.  I  am  no  prophet,  but 
even  I  can  see  that  it  will  take  that  boy  many  years  to 
see  things  as  his  neighbours  see  them.  He  will  get  no 
help  from  his  father  and  mother,  who  would  never  for- 
give him  for  his  good  luck  if  I  left  him  the  money  out- 
right ;  I  daresay  I  am  wrong,  but  I  think  he  will  have  to 
lose  the  greater  part  or  all  of  what  he  has,  before  he  will 
know  how  to  keep  what  he  will  get  from  me." 

Supposing  he  went  bankrupt  before  he  was  twenty- 
eight  years  old,  the  money  was  to  be  mine  absolutely, 
but  she  could  trust  me,  she  said,  to  hand  it  over  to  Ernest 
in  due  time. 

"If,"  she  continued,  "I  am  mistaken,  the  worst  that  can 
happen  is  that  he  will  come  into  a  larger  sum  at  twenty- 
eight  instead  of  a  smaller  sum  at,  say,  twenty-three,  for  I 
would  never  trust  him  with  it  earlier,  and  if  he  knows 
nothing  about  it  he  will  not  be  unhappy  for  the  want 
of  it." 

She  begged  me  to  take  £2000  in  return  for  the  trouble 
I  should  have  in  taking  charge  of  the  boy's  estate,  and 
as  a  sign  of  the  testatrix's  hope  that  I  would  now  and 
again  look  after  him  while  he  was  still  young.  The  re- 
maining £3000  I  was  to  pay  in  legacies  and  annuities  to 
friends  and  servants. 

In  vain  both  her  lawyer  and  myself  remonstrated  with 
her  on  the  unusual  and  hazardous  nature  of  this  arrange- 
ment. We  told  her  that  sensible  people  will  not  take  a. 
more  sanguine  view  concerning  human  nature  than  the 
Courts  of  Chancery  do.  We  said,  in  fact,  everything  that 
anyone  else  would  say.  She  admitted  everything,  but 
urged  that  her  time  was  short,  that  nothing  would  in- 


170         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

duce  her  to  leave  her  money  to  her  nephew  in  the  usual 
way.  "It  is  an  unusually  foolish  will,"  she  said,  "but  he 
is  an  unusually  foolish  boy;"  and  she  smiled  quite  mer- 
rily at  her  little  sally.  Like  all  the  rest  of  her  family, 
she  was  very  stubborn  when  her  mind  was  made  up. 
So  the  thing  was  done  as  she  wished  it. 

No  provision  was  made  for  either  my  death  or  Er- 
nest's— Miss  Pontifex  had  settled  it  that  we  were  neither 
of  us  going  to  die,  and  was  too  ill  to  go  into  details ;  she 
was  so  anxious,  moreover,  to  sign  her  will  while  still  able 
to  do  so  that  we  had  practically  no  alternative  but  to  do 
as  she  told  us.  If  she  recovered  we  could  see  things 
put  on  a  more  satisfactory  footing,  and  further  discus- 
sion would  evidently  impair  her  chances  of  recovery;  it 
seemed  then  only  too  likely  that  it  was  a  case  of  this 
will  or  no  will  at  all. 

When  the  will  was  signed  I  wrote  a  letter  in  dupli- 
cate, saying  that  I  held  all  Miss  Pontifex  had  left  me  in 
trust  for  Ernest  except  as  regards  ^5000,  but  that  he  was 
not  to  come  into  the  bequest,  and  was  to  know  nothing 
whatever  about  it  directly  or  indirectly,  till  he  was  twen- 
ty-eight years  old,  and  if  he  was  bankrupt  before  he 
came  into  it  the  money  was  to  be  mine  absolutely.  At 
the  foot  of  each  letter  Miss  Pontifex  wrote,  "The  above 
was  my  understanding  when  I  made  my  will,"  and  then 
signed  her  name.  The  solicitor  and  his  clerk  witnessed; 
I  kept  one  copy  myself  and  handed  the  other  to  Miss 
Pontifex's  solicitor. 

When  all  this  had  been  done  she  became  more  easy 
in  her  mind.  She  talked  principally  about  her  nephew. 
"Don't  scold  him,"  she  said,  "if  he  is  volatile,  and  con- 
tinually takes  things  up  only  to  throw  them  down  again. 
.How  can  he  find  out  his  strength  or  weakness  otherwise? 
A  man's  profession,"  she  said,  and  here  she  gave  one  of 
her  wicked  little  laughs,  "is  not  like  his  wife,  which  he 
must  take  once  for  all,  for  better  for  worse,  without 
proof  beforehand.  Let  him  go  here  and  there,  and  learn 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         171 

his  truest  liking  by  finding  out  what,  after  all,  he  catches 
himself  turning  to  most  habitually — then  let  him  stick  to 
this ;  but  I  daresay  Ernest  will  be  forty  or  five  and  forty 
before  he  settles  down.  Then  all  his  previous  infidelities 
will  work  together  to  him  for  good  if  he  is  the  boy  I 
hope  he  is. 

"Above  all,"  she  continued,  "do  not  let  him  work  up 
to  his  full  strength,  except  once  or  twice  in  his  lifetime ; 
nothing  is  well  done  nor  worth  doing  unless,  take  it  all 
round,  it  has  come  pretty  easily.  Theobald  and  Christina 
would  give  him  a  pinch  of  salt  and  tell  him  to  put  it  on 
the  tails  of  the  seven  deadly  virtues ;" — here  she  laughed 
again  in  her  old  manner  at  once  so  mocking  and  so  sweet 
— "I  think  if  he  likes  pancakes  he  had  perhaps  better 
eat  them  on  Shrove  Tuesday,  but  this  is  enough."  These 
were  the  last  coherent  words  she  spoke.  From  that  time 
she  grew  continually  worse,  and  was  never  free  from 
delirium  till  her  death — which  took  place  less  than  a  fort- 
night afterwards,  to  the  inexpressible  grief  of  those  who 
knew  and  loved  her. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

LETTERS  had  been  written  to  Miss  Pontifex's  brothers 
and  sisters,  and  one  and  all  came  post-haste  to  Rough- 
borough.  Before  they  arrived  the  poor  lady  was  already 
delirious,  and  for  the  sake  of  her  own  peace  at  the  last 
I  am  half  glad  she  never  recovered  consciousness. 

I  had  known  these  people  all  their  lives,  as  none  can 
know  each  other  but  those  who  have  played  together  as 
children ;  I  knew  how  they  had  all  of  them — perhaps 
Theobald  least,  but  all  of  them  more  or  less — made  her 
life  a  burden  to  her  until  the  death  of  her  father  had 
made  her  her  own  mistress,  and  I  was  displeased  at  their 
coming  one  after  the  other  to  Roughborough,  and  inquir- 
ing whether  their  sister  had  recovered  consciousness  suf- 


172         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

fkiently  to  be  able  to  see  them.  It  was  known  that  she 
had  sent  for  me  on  being  taken  ill,  and  that  I  remained 
at  Roughborough,  and  I  own  I  was  angered  by  the  min- 
gled air  of  suspicion,  defiance  and  inquisitiveness,  with 
which  they  regarded  me.  They  would  all,  except  Theo- 
bald, I  believe,  have  cut  me  downright  if  they  had  not 
believed  me  to  know  something  they  wanted  to  know 
themselves,  and  might  have  some  chance  of  learning 
from  me — for  it  was  plain  I  had  been  in  some  way  con- 
cerned with  the  making  of  their  sister's  will.  None  of 
them  suspected  what  the  ostensible  nature  of  this  would 
be,  but  I  think  they  feared  Miss  Pontifex  was  about  to 
leave  money  for  public  uses.  John  said  to  me  in  his 
blandest  manner  that  he  fancied  he  remembered  to  have 
heard  his  sister  say  that  she  thought  of  leaving  money  to 
found  a  college  for  the  relief  of  dramatic  authors  in  dis- 
tress; to  this  I  made  no  rejoinder,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
his  suspicions  were  deepened. 

When  the  end  came,  I  got  Miss  Pontifex's  solicitor  to 
write  and  tell  her  brothers  and  sisters  how  she  had  left 
her  money :  they  were  not  unnaturally  furious,  and  went 
each  to  his  or  her  separate  home  without  attending  the 
funeral,  and  without  paying  any  attention  to  myself. 
This  was  perhaps  the  kindest  thing  they  could  have  done 
by  me,  for  their  behaviour  made  me  so  angry  that  I  be- 
came almost  reconciled  to  Alethea's  will  out  of  pleasure 
at  the  anger  it  had  aroused.  But  for  this  I  should  have 
felt  the  will  keenly,  as  having  been  placed  by  it  in  the 
position  which  of  all  others  I  had  been  most  anxious  to 
avoid,  and  as  having  saddled  me  with  a  very  heavy  re- 
sponsibility. Still  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  escape,  and 
I  could  only  let  things  take  their  course. 

Miss  Pontifex  had  expressed  a  wish  to  be  buried  at 
Paleham ;  in  the  course  of  the  next  few  days  I  therefore 
took  the  body  thither.  I  had  not  been  to  Paleham  since 
the  death  of  my  father  some  six  years  earlier.  I  had 
often  wished  to  go  there,  but  had  shrunk  from  doing  so, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          173 

though  my  sister  had  been  two  or  three  times.  I  could 
not  bear  to  see  the  house  which  had  been  my  home  for  so 
many  years  of  my  life  in  the  hands  of  strangers ;  to  ring 
ceremoniously  at  a  bell  which  I  had  never  yet  pulled 
except  as  a  boy  in  jest;  to  feel  that  I  had  nothing  to  do 
with  a  garden  in  which  I  had  in  childhood  gathered  so 
many  a  nosegay,  and  which  had  seemed  my  own  for  many 
years  after  I  had  reached  man's  estate ;  to  see  the  rooms 
bereft  of  every  familiar  feature,  and  made  so  unfamiliar 
in  spite  of  their  familiarity.  Had  there  been  any  suffi- 
cient reason,  I  should  have  taken  these  things  as  a  matter 
•of  course,  and  should  no  doubt  have  found  them  much 
worse  in  anticipation  than  in  reality,  but  as  there  had  been 
no  special  reason  why  I  should  go  to  Paleham  I  had 
hitherto  avoided  doing  so.  Now,  however,  my  going 
was  a  necessity,  and  I  confess  I  never  felt  more  subdued 
than  I  did  on  arriving  there  with  the  dead  playmate  of 
my  childhood. 

I  found  the  village  more  changed  than  I  had  expected. 
The  railway  had  come  there,  and  a  brand  new  yellow 
brick  station  was  on  the  site  of  old  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ponti- 
fex's  cottage.  Nothing  but  the  carpenter's  shop  was  now 
standing.  I  saw  many  faces  I  knew,  but  even  in  six 
years  they  seemed  to  have  grown  wonderfully  older. 
Some  of  the  very  old  were  dead,  and  the  old  were  get- 
ting very  old  in  their  stead.  I  felt  like  the  changeling  in 
the  fairy  story  who  came  back  after  a  seven  years'  sleep. 
Everyone  seemed  glad  to  see  me,  though  I  had  never 
given  them  particular  cause  to  be  so,  and  everyone  who 
remembered  old  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pontifex  spoke  warmly 
of  them  and  were  pleased  at  their  granddaughter's  wish- 
ing to  be  laid  near  them.  Entering  the  churchyard  and 
standing  in  the  twilight  of  a  gusty,  cloudy  evening  on  the 
spot  close  beside  old  Mrs.  Pontifex's  grave  which  I  had 
chosen  for  Alethea's,  I  thought  of  the  many  times  that 
she,  who  would  lie  there  henceforth,  and  I,  who  must 
surely  lie  one  day  in  some  such  another  place,  though 


174         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

when  and  where  I  knew  not,  had  romped  over  this  very 
spot  as  childish  lovers  together. 

Next  morning  I  followed  her  to  the  grave,  and  in  due 
course  set  up  a  plain  upright  slab  to  her  memory  as  like 
as  might  be  to  those  over  the  graves  of  her  grandmother 
and  grandfather.  I  gave  the  dates  and  places  of  her 
birth  and  death,  but  added  nothing  except  that  this 
stone  was  set  up  by  one  who  had  known  and  loved  her. 
Knowing  how  fond  she  had  been  of  music  I  had  been 
half  inclined  at  one  time  to  inscribe  a  few  bars  of  music, 
if  I  could  find  any  which  seemed  suitable  to  her  character, 
but  I  knew  how  much  she  would  have  disliked  anything 
singular  in  connection  with  her  tombstone,  and  did  not 
do  it. 

Before,  however,  I  had  come  to  this  conclusion,  I  had 
thought  that  Ernest  might  be  able  to  help  me  to  the  right 
thing,  and  had  written  to  him  upon  the  subject.  The 
following  is  the  answer  I  received — 

"DEAR  GODPAPA, — I  send  you  the  best  bit  I  can  think 
of;  it  is  the  subject  of  the  last  of  Handel's  six  grand 
fugues  and  goes  thus  : — 

Uraoe 


It  would  do  better  for  a  man,  especially  for  an  old  man 
who  was  very  sorry  for  things,  than  for  a  woman,  but  I 
cannot  think  of  anything  better ;  if  you  do  not  like  it  for 
Aunt  Alethea  I  shall  keep  it  for  myself, — Your  affec- 
tionate Godson,  ERNEST  PONTIFEX." 

Was  this  the  little  lad  who  could  get  sweeties  for  two- 
pence but  not  for  two-pence-halfpenny?    Dear,  dear  me, 
I  thought  to  myself,  how  these  babes  and  sucklings  do 
,  give  us  the  go-by  surely.     Choosing  his  own  epitaph  at 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         175 

fifteen  as  for  a  man  who  "had  been  very  sorry  for 
things,"  and  such  a  strain  as  that — why  it  might  have 
done  for  Leonardo  da  Vinci  himself.  Then  I  set  the 
boy  down  as  a  conceited  young  jackanapes,  which  no 
doubt  he  was, — but  so  are  a  great  many  other  young 
people  of  Ernest's  age. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

IF  Theobald  and  Christina  had  not  been  too  well  pleased 
when  Miss  Pontifex  first  took  Ernest  in  hand,  they  were 
still  less  so  when  the  connection  between  the  two  was  in- 
terrupted so  prematurely.  They  said  they  had  made  sure 
from  what  their  sister  had  said  that  she  was  going  to 
make  Ernest  her  heir.  I  do  not  think  she  had  given 
them  so  much  as  a  hint  to  this  effect.  Theobald  indeed 
gave  Ernest  to  understand  that  she  had  done  so  in  a 
letter  which  will  be  given  shortly,  but  if  Theobald  wanted 
to  make  himself  disagreeable,  a  trifle  light  as  air  would 
forthwith  assume  in  his  imagination  whatever  form  was 
most  convenient  to  him.  I  do  not  think  they  had  even 
made  up  their  minds  what  Alethea  was  to  do  with  her 
money  before  they  knew  of  her  being  at  the  point  of 
death,  and  as  I  have  said  already,  if  they  had  thought  it 
likely  that  Ernest  would  be  made  heir  over  their  own 
heads  without  their  having  at  any  rate  a  life  interest  in 
the  bequest,  they  would  have  soon  thrown  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  further  intimacy  between  aunt  and  nephew. 

This,  however,  did  not  bar  their  right  to  feeling  ag- 
grieved now  that  neither  they  nor  Ernest  had  taken  any- 
thing at  all,  and  they  could  profess  disappointment  on 
their  boy's  behalf  which  they  would  have  been  too  proud 
to  admit  upon  their  own.  In  fact,  it  was  only  amiable 
of  them  to  be  disappointed  under  these  circumstances. 

Christina  said  that  the  will  was  simply  fraudulent,  and 
was  convinced  that  it  could  be  upset  if  she  and  Theobald 


176         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

went  the  right  way  to  work.  Theobald,  she  said,  should 
go  before  the  Lord  Chancellor,  not  in  full  court  but  in 
chambers,  where  he  could  explain  the  whole  matter ;  or, 
perhaps  it  would  be  even  better  if  she  were  to  go  herself 
— and  I  dare  not  trust  myself  to  describe  the  reverie 
to  which  this  last  idea  gave  rise.  I  believe  in  the  end 
Theobald  died,  and  the  Lord  Chancellor  (who  had  be- 
come a  widower  a  few  weeks  earlier)  made  her  an  offer, 
which,  however,  she  firmly  but  not  ungratefully  de- 
clined ;  she  should  ever,  she  said,  continue  to  think  of  him 
as  a  friend — at  this  point  the  cook  came  in,  saying  the 
butcher  had  called,  and  what  would  she  please  to  order. 

I  think  Theobald  must  have  had  an  idea  that  there  was 
something  behind  the  bequest  to  me,  but  he  said  nothing 
about  it  to  Christina.  He  was  angry  and  felt  wronged, 
because  he  could  not  get  at  Alethea  to  give  her  a  piece  of 
his  mind  any  more  than  he  had  been  able  to  get  at  his 
father.  "It  is  so  mean  of  people,"  he  exclaimed  to  him- 
self, "to  inflict  an  injury  of  this  sort,  and  then  shirk  fac- 
ing those  whom  they  have  injured;  let  us  hope  that,  at 
any  rate,  they  and  I  may  meet  in  Heaven."  But  of  this 
he  was  doubtful,  for  when  people  had  done  so  great  a 
wrong  as  this,  it  was  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  they 
would  go  to  Heaven  at  all — and  as  for  his  meeting  them 
in  another  place,  the  idea  never  so  much  as  entered  his 
mind. 

One  so  angry  and,  of  late,  so  little  used  to  contradic- 
tion might  be  trusted,  however,  to  avenge  himself  upon 
someone,  and  Theobald  had  long  since  developed  the  or- 
gan, by  means  of  which  he  might  vent  spleen  with  least 
risk  and  greatest  satisfaction  to  himself.  This  organ,  it 
may  be  guessed,  was  nothing  else  than  Ernest ;  to  Ernest 
therefore  he  proceeded  to  unburden  himself,  not  per- 
sonally, but  by  letter. 

"You  ought  to  know,"  he  wrote,  "that  your  Aunt 
Alethea  had  given  your  mother  and  me  to  understand 
that  it  was  her  wish  to  make  you  her  heir — in  the  event, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         177 

of  course,  of  your  conducting  yourself  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  give  her  confidence  in  you ;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, she  has  left  you  nothing,  and  the  whole  of  her 
property  has  gone  to  your  godfather,  Mr.  Overton. 
Your  mother  and  I  are  willing  to  hope  that  if  she  had 
lived  longer  you  would  yet  have  succeeded  in  winning 
her  good  opinion,  but  it  is  too  late  to  think  of  this  now. 

"The  carpentering  and  organ-building  must  at  once  be 
discontinued.  I  never  believed  in  the  project,  and  have 
seen  no  reason  to  alter  my  original  opinion.  I  am  not 
sorry  for  your  own  sake,  that  it  is  to  be  at  an  end,  nor, 
I  am  sure,  will  you  regret  it  yourself  in  after  years. 

"A  few  words  more  as  regards  your  own  prospects. 
You  have,  as  I  believe  you  know,  a  small  inheritance, 
which  is  yours  legally  under  your  grandfather's  will. 
This  bequest  was  made  inadvertently,  and,  I  believe,  en- 
tirely through  a  misunderstanding  on  the  lawyer's  part. 
The  bequest  was  probably  intended  not  to  take  effect  till 
after  the  death  of  your  mother  and  myself ;  nevertheless, 
as  the  will  is  actually  worded,  it  will  now  be  at  your 
command  if  you  live  to  be  twenty-one  years  old.  From 
this,  however,  large  deductions  must  be  made.  There 
will  be  legacy  duty,  and  I  do  not  know  whether  I  am  not 
entitled  to  deduct  the  expenses  of  your  education  and 
maintenance  from  birth  to  your  coming  of  age ;  I  shall 
not  in  all  likelihood  insist  on  this  right  to  the  full,  if  you 
conduct  yourself  properly,  but  a  considerable  sum  should 
certainly  be  deducted ;  there  will  therefore  remain  very 
little — say  £1000  or  £2000  at  the  outside,  as  what  will  be 
actually  yours — but  the  strictest  account  shall  be  ren- 
dered you  in  due  time. 

"This,  let  me  warn  you  most  seriously,  is  all  that  you 
must  expect  from  me"  (even  Ernest  saw  that  it  was  not 
from  Theobald  at  all),  "at  any  rate  till  after  my  death, 
which  for  aught  any  of  us  know  may  be  yet  many  years 
distant.  It  is  not  a  large  sum,  but  it  is  sufficient  if  supple- 
mented by  steadiness  and  earnestness  of  purpose.  Your 


178         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

mother  and  I  gave  you  the  name  Ernest,  hoping  that  it 

would  remind  you  continually  of "  but  I  really  cannot 

copy  more  of  this  effusion.  It  was  all  the  same  old  will- 
shaking  game  and  came  practically  to  this,  that  Ernest 
was  no  good,  and  that  if  he  went  on  as  he  was  going  on 
now,  he  would  probably  have  to  go  about  the  streets  beg- 
ging without  any  shoes  or  stockings  soon  after  he  had  left 
school,  or  at  any  rate,  college ;  and  that  he,  Theobald,  and 
Christina  were  almost  too  good  for  this  world  altogether. 

After  he  had  written  this  Theobald  felt  quite  good- 
natured,  and  sent  to  the  Mrs.  Thompson  of  the  moment 
even  more  soup  and  wine  than  her  usual  not  illiberal 
allowance. 

Ernest  was  deeply,  passionately  upset  by  his  father's 
letter;  to  think  that  even  his  dear  aunt,  the  one  person 
of  his  relations  whom  he  really  loved,  should  have  turned 
against  him  and  thought  badly  of  him  after  all.  This  was 
the  unkindest  cut  of  all.  In  the  hurry  of  her  illness  Miss 
Pontifex,  while  thinking  only  of  his  welfare,  had  omitted 
to  make  such  small  present  mention  of  him  as  would 
have  made  his  father's  innuendoes  stingless ;  and  her  ill- 
ness being  infectious,  she  had  not  seen  him  after  its  na- 
ture was  known.  I  myself  did  not  know  of  .Theobald's 
letter,  nor  think  enough  about  my  godson  to  guess  what 
might  easily  be  his  state.  It  was  not  till  many  years  after- 
wards that  I  found  Theobald's  letter  in  the  pocket  of  an 
old  portfolio  which  Ernest  had  used  at  school,  and  in 
which  other  old  letters  and  school  documents  were  col- 
lected which  I  have  used  in  this  book.  He  had  forgotten 
that  he  had  it,  but  told  me  when  he  saw  it  that  he  re- 
membered it  as  the  first  thing  that  made  him  begin  to  rise 
against  his  father  in  a  rebellion  which  he  recognised  as 
righteous,  though  he  dared  not  openly  avow  it.  Not  the 
least  serious  thing  was  that  it  would,  he  feared,  be  his 
duty  to  give  up  the  legacy  his  grandfather  had  left  him ; 
for  if  it  was  his  only  through  a  mistake,  how  could  he 
keep  it? 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          179 

During  the  rest  of  the  half  year  Ernest  was  listless  and 
unhappy.  He  was  very  fond  of  some  of  his  schoolfel- 
lows, but  afraid  of  those  whom  he  believed  to  be  better 
than  himself,  and  prone  to  idealise  everyone  into  being 
his  superior  except  those  who  were  obviously  a  good 
deal  beneath  him.  He  held  himself  much  too  cheap,  and 
because  he  was  without  that  physical  strength  and  vigour 
which  he  so  much  coveted,  and  also  because  he  knew  he 
shirked  his  lessons,  he  believed  that  he  was  without  any- 
thing which  could  deserve  the  name  of  a  good  quality; 
he  was  naturally  bad,  and  one  of  those  for  whom  there 
was  no  place  for  repentance,  though  he  sought  it  even 
with  tears.  So  he  shrank  out  of  sight  of  those  whom  in 
his  boyish  way  he  idolised,  never  for  a  moment  sus- 
pecting that  he  might  have  capacities  to  the  full  as  high 
as  theirs  though  of  a  different  kind,  and  fell  in  more 
with  those  who  were  reputed  of  the  baser  sort,  with 
whom  he  could  at  any  rate  be  upon  equal  terms.  Before 
the  end  of  the  half  year  he  had  dropped  from  the  estate 
to  which  he  had  been  raised  during  his  aunt's  stay  at 
Roughborough,  and  his  old  dejection,  varied,  however, 
with  bursts  of  conceit  rivalling  those  of  his  mother, 
resumed  its  sway  over  him.  "Pontifex,"  said  Dr.  Skin- 
ner, who  had  fallen  upon  him  in  hall  one  day  like  a 
moral  landslip,  before  he  had  time  to  escape,  "do  you 
never  laugh?  Do  you  always  look  so  preternaturally 
grave?"  The  doctor  had  not  meant  to  be  unkind,  but 
the  boy  turned  crimson,  and  escaped. 

There  was  one  place  only  where  he  was  happy,  and  that 
was  in  the  old  church  of  St.  Michael,  when  his  friend  the 
organist  was  practising.  About  this  time  cheap  editions 
of  the  great  oratorios  began  to  appear,  and  Ernest  got 
them  all  as  soon  as  they  were  published ;  he  would  some- 
times sell  a  school-book  to  a  second-hand  dealer,  and 
buy  a  number  or  two  of  the  "Messiah,"  or  the  "Creation," 
or  "Elijah,"  with  the  proceeds.  This  was  simply  cheating 
his  papa  and  mamma,  but  Ernest  was  falling  low  again — 


i8o         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

or  thought  he  was — and  he  wanted  the  music  much,  and 
the  Sallust,  or  whatever  it  was,  little.  Sometimes  the 
organist  would  go  home,  leaving  his  keys  with  Ernest,  so 
that  he  could  play  by  himself  and  lock  up  the  organ  and 
the  church  in  time  to  get  back  for  calling  over.  At  other 
times,  while  his  friend  was  playing,  he  would  wander 
round  the  church,  looking  at  the  monuments  and  the  old 
stained  glass  windows,  enchanted  as  regards  both  ears 
and  eyes,  at  once.  Once  the  old  rector  got  hold  of  him  as 
he  was  watching  a  new  window  being  put  in,  which 
the  rector  had  bought  in  Germany — the  work,  it  was 
supposed,  of  Albert  Diirer.  He  questioned  Ernest,  and 
finding  that  he  was  fond  of  music,  he  said  in  his  old 
trembling  voice  (for  he  was  over  eighty),  "Then  you 
should  have  known  Dr.  Burney  who  wrote  the  history  of 
music.  I  knew  him  exceedingly  well  when  I  was  a  young 
man."  That  made  Ernest's  heart  beat,  for  he  knew  that 
Dr.  Burney,  when  a  boy  at  school  at  Chester,  used  to 
break  bounds  that  he  might  watch  Handel  smoking  his 
pipe  in  the  Exchange  coffee  house — and  now  he  was  in 
the  presence  of  one  who,  if  he  had  not  seen  Handel 
himself,  had  at  least  seen  those  who  had  seen  him. 

These  were  oases  in  his  desert,  but,  as  a  general  rule, 
the  boy  looked  thin  and  pale,  and  as  though  he  had  a 
secret  which  depressed  him,  which  no  doubt  he  had,  but 
for  which  I  cannot  blame  him.  He  rose,  in  spite  of  him- 
self, higher  in  the  school,  but  fell  ever  into  deeper  and 
deeper  disgrace  with  the  masters,  and  did  not  gain  in  the 
opinion  of  those  boys  about  whom  he  was  persuaded 
that  they  could  assuredly  never  know  what  it  was  to 
have  a  secret  weighing  upon  their  minds.  This  was  what 
Ernest  felt  so  keenly;  he  did  not  much  care  about  the 
boys  who  liked  him,  and  idolised  some  who  kept  him  as 
far  as  possible  at  a  distance,  but  this  is  pretty  much  the 
case  with  all  boys  everywhere. 

At  last  things  reached  a  crisis,  below  which  they  could 
not  very  well  go,  for  at  the  end  of  the  half  year  but  one 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         181 

after  his  aunt's  death,  Ernest  brought  back  a  document 
in  his  portmanteau,  which  Theobald  stigmatised  as  "in- 
famous and  outrageous."  I  need  hardly  say  I  am  allud- 
ing to  his  school  bill. 

This  document  was  always  a  source  of  anxiety  to 
Ernest,  for  it  was  gone  into  with  scrupulous  care,  and 
he  was  a  good  deal  cross-examined  about  it.  He  would 
sometimes  "write  in"  for  articles  necessary  for  his  edu- 
cation, such  as  a  portfolio,  or  a  dictionary,  and  sell  the 
same,  as  I  have  explained,  in  order  to  eke  out  his  pocket 
money,  probably  to  buy  either  music  or  tobacco.  These 
frauds  were  sometimes,  as  Ernest  thought,  in  imminent 
danger  of  being  discovered,  and  it  was  a  load  off  his 
breast  when  the  cross-examination  was  safely  over.  This 
time  Theobald  had  made  a  great  fuss  about  the  extras, 
but  had  grudgingly  passed  them;  it  was  another  matter, 
however,  with  the  character  and  the  moral  statistics,  with 
which  the  bill  concluded. 

The  page  on  which  these  details  were  to  be  found  was 
as  follows : 

REPORT  OF  THE  CONDUCT  AND   PROGRESS   OF   ERNEST   PONTIFEX 
UPPER  FIFTH  FORM,  HALF  YEAR  ENDING  MIDSUMMER  1851 

Classics — Idle,  listless  and  unimproving. 

Mathematics 

Divinity  " 

Conduct  in  house — Orderly. 

General  Conduct — Not  satisfactory,  on  account  of  his  great  un- 

punctuality  and  inattention  to  duties. 

Monthly  merit  money  is.    6d.    6d.    od.    6d.    Total  2s.  6d. 

Number  of  merit  marks        20110       Total  4 

Number  of  penal  marks  26  20  25  30  25  Total  126 
Number  of  extra  penals  9  6  10  12  n  Total  48 

I  recommend  that  his  pocket  money  be  made  to  depend  upon 
his  merit  money. 

S.  SKINNER,  Headmaster. 

•    1 


i82         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

ERNEST  was  thus  in  disgrace  from  the  beginning  of  the 
holidays,  but  an  incident  soon  occurred  which  led  him 
into  delinquencies  compared  with  which  all  his  previous 
sins  were  venial. 

Among  the  servants  at  the  Rectory  was  a  remarkably 
pretty  girl  named  Ellen.  She  came  from  Devonshire,  and 
was  the  daughter  of  a  fisherman  who  had  been  drowned 
when  she  was  a  child.  Her  mother  set  up  a  small  shop  in 
the  village  where  her  husband  had  lived,  and  just  man- 
aged to  make  a  living.  Ellen  remained  with  her  till 
she  was  fourteen,  when  she  first  went  out  to  service. 
Four  years  later,  when  she  was  about  eighteen,  but  so 
well  grown  that  she  might  have  passed  for  twenty,  she 
had  been  strongly  recommended  to  Christina,  who  was 
then  in  want  of  a  housemaid,  and  had  now  been  at  Bat- 
tersby  about  twelve  months. 

As  I  have  said,  the  girl  was  remarkably  pretty;  she 
looked  the  perfection  of  health  and  good  temper,  indeed 
there  was  a  serene  expression  upon  her  face  which  capti- 
vated almost  all  who  saw  her;  she  looked  as  if  matters 
had  always  gone  well  with  her  and  were  always  going  to 
do  so,  and  as  if  no  conceivable  combination  of  circum- 
stances could  put  her  for  long  together  out  of  temper 
either  with  herself  or  with  anyone  else.  Her  complexion 
was  clear,  but  high;  her  eyes  were  grey  and  beautifully 
shaped ;  her  lips  were  full  and  restful,  with  something  of 
an  Egyptian  Sphinx-like  character  about  them.  When  I 
learned  that  she  came  from  Devonshire  I  fancied  I  saw 
a  strain  of  far-away  Egyptian  blood  in  her,  for  I  had 
heard,  though  I  know  not  what  foundation  there  was  for 
the  story,  that  the  Egyptians  made  settlements  on  the 
coast  of  Devonshire  and  Cornwall  long  before  the 
Romans  conquered  Britain.  Her  hair  was  a  rich  brown, 
and  her  figure — of  about  the  middle  height — perfect,  but 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         183 

erring  if  at  all  on  the  side  of  robustness.  Altogether 
she  was  one  of  those  girls  about  whom  one  is  inclined 
to  wonder  how  they  can  remain  unmarried  a  week  or  a 
day  longer. 

Her  face  (as  indeed  faces  generally  are,  though  I 
grant  they  lie  sometimes)  was  a  fair  index  to  her  dispo- 
sition. She  was  good  nature  itself,  and  everyone  in  the 
house,  not  excluding  I  believe  even  Theobald  himself 
after  a  fashion,  was  fond  of  her.  As  for  Christina  she 
took  the  very  warmest  interest  in  her,  and  used  to  have 
her  into  the  dining-room  twice  a  week,  and  prepare  her 
for  confirmation  (for  by  some  accident  she  had  never 
been  confirmed)  by  explaining  to  her  the  geography  of 
Palestine  and  the  routes  taken  by  St.  Paul  on  his  va- 
rious journeys  in  Asia  Minor. 

When  Bishop  Treadwell  did  actually  come  down  to 
Battersby  and  hold  a  confirmation  there  (Christina  had 
her  wish,  he  slept  at  Battersby,  and  she  had  a  grand 
dinner  party  for  him,  and  called  him  "My  lord"  several 
times),  he  was  so  much  struck  with  her  pretty  face  and 
modest  demeanour  when  he  laid  his  hands  upon  her  that 
he  asked  Christina  about  her.  When  she  replied  that 
Ellen  was  one  of  her  own  servants,  the  bishop  seemed, 
so  she  thought  or  chose  to  think,  quite  pleased  that  so 
pretty  a  girl  should  have  found  so  exceptionally  good  a 
situation. 

Ernest  used  to  get  up  early  during  the  holidays  so  that 
he  might  play  the  piano  before  breakfast  without  dis- 
turbing his  papa  and  mamma — or  rather,  perhaps,  with- 
out being  disturbed  by  them.  Ellen  would  generally  be 
there  sweeping  the  drawing-room  floor  and  dusting  while 
he  was  playing,  and  the  boy,  who  was  ready  to  make 
friends  with  most  people,  soon  became  very  fond  of  her. 
He  was  not  as  a  general  rule  sensitive  to  the  charms  of 
the  fair  sex,  indeed  he  had  hardly  been  thrown  in  with 
any  women  except  his  Aunts  Allaby,  and  his  Aunt  Ale- 
thea,  his  mother,  his  sister  Charlotte  and  Mrs.  Jay;  some- 


184         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

times  also  he  had  had  to  take  off  his  hat  to  the  Miss 
Skinners,  and  had  felt  as  if  he  should  sink  into  the 
earth  on  doing  so,  but  his  shyness  had  worn  off  with 
Ellen,  and  the  pair  had  become  fast  friends. 

Perhaps  it  was  well  that  Ernest  was  not  at  home  for 
very  long  together,  but  as  yet  his  affection  though  hearty 
was  quite  Platonic.  He  was  not  only  innocent,  but  de- 
plorably— I  might  even  say  guiltily — innocent.  His  pref- 
erence was  based  upon  the  fact  that  Ellen  never  scolded 
him,  but  was  always  smiling  and  good  tempered ;  besides 
she  used  to  like  to  hear  him  play,  and  this  gave  him  addi- 
tional zest  in  playing.  The  morning  access  to  the  piano 
was  indeed  the  one  distinct  advantage  which  the  holi- 
days had  in  Ernest's  eyes,  for  at  school  he  could  not  get 
at  a  piano  except  quasi-surreptitiously  at  the  shop  of  Mr. 
Pearsall,  the  music-seller. 

On  returning  this  midsummer  he  was  shocked  to  find 
his  favourite  looking  pale  and  ill.  All  her  good  spirits 
had  left  her,  the  roses  had  fled  from  her  cheek,  and  she 
seemed  on  the  point  of  going  into  a  decline.  She  said 
she  was  unhappy  about  her  mother,  whose  health  was 
failing,  and  was  afraid  she  was  herself  not  long  for  this 
world.  Christina,  of  course,  noticed  the  change.  "I 
have  often  remarked,"  she  said,  "that  those  very  fresh- 
coloured,  healthy-looking  girls  are  the  first  to  break  up. 
I  have  given  her  calomel  and  James's  powders  repeatedly, 
and  though  she  does  not  like  it,  I  think  I  must  show  her 
to  Dr.  Martin  when  he  next  comes  here." 

"Very  well,  my  dear,"  said  Theobald,  and  so  next  time 
Dr.  Martin  came  Ellen  was  sent  for.  Dr.  Martin  soon 
discovered  what  would  probably  have  been  apparent  to 
Christina  herself  if  she  had  been  able  to  conceive  of  such 
an  ailment  in  connection  with  a  servant  who  lived  under 
the  same  roof  as  Theobald  and  herself — the  purity  of 
whose  married  life  should  have  preserved  all  unmarried 
people  who  came  near  them  from  any  taint  of  mischief. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         185 

When  it  was  discovered  that  in  three  or  four  months 
more  Ellen  would  become  a  mother,  Christina's  natural 
good  nature  would  have  prompted  her  to  deal  as  leniently 
with  the  case  as  she  could,  if  she  had  not  been  panic- 
stricken  lest  any  mercy  on  her  and  Theobald's  part  should 
be  construed  into  toleration,  however  partial,  of  so  great 
a  sin";  hereon  she  dashed  off  into  the  conviction  that  the 
only  thing  to  do  was  to  pay  Ellen  her  wages,  and  pack  her 
off  on  the  instant  bag  and  baggage  out  of  the  house  which 
purity  had  more  especially  and  particularly  singled  out 
for  its  abiding  city.  When  she  thought  of  the  fearful 
contamination  which  Ellen's  continued  presence  even  for 
a  week  would  occasion,  she  could  not  hesitate. 

Then  came  the  question — horrid  thought! — as  to  who 
was  the  partner  of  Ellen's  guilt?  Was  it,  could  it  be,  her 
own. son,  her  darling  Ernest?  Ernest  was  getting  a  big 
boy  now.  She  could  excuse  any  young  woman  for  taking 
a  fancy  to  him;  as  for  himself,  why  she  was  sure  he 
was  behind  no  young  man  of  his  age  in  appreciation 
of  the  charms  of  a  nice-looking  young  woman.  So 
long  as  he  was  innocent  she  did  not  mind  this,  but  oh,  if 
he  were  guilty! 

She  could  not  bear  to  think  of  it,  and  yet  it  would  be 
mere  cowardice  not  to  look  such  a  matter  in  the  face — 
her  hope  was  in  the  Lord,  and  she  was  ready  to  bear 
cheerfully  and  make  the  best  of  any  suffering  He  might 
think  fit  to  lay  upon  her.  That  the  baby  must  be  either 
a  boy  or  girl — this  much,  at  any  rate,  was  clear.  No 
less  clear  was  it  that  the  child,  if  a  boy,  would  resemble 
Theobald,  and  if  a  girl,  herself.  Resemblance,  whether 
of  body  or  mind,  generally  leaped  over  a  generation.  The 
guilt  of  the  parents  must  not  be  shared  by  the  innocent 
offspring  of  shame — oh!  no — and  such  a  child  as  this 

would  be She  was  off  in  one  of  her  reveries  at 

once. 

The  child  was  in  the  act  of  being  consecrated  Arch- 


i86         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

bishop  of  Canterbury  when  Theobald  came  in  from  a 
visit  in  the  parish,  and  was  told  of  the  shocking  dis- 
covery. 

Christina  said  nothing  about  Ernest,  and  I  believe  was 
more  than  half  angry  when  the  blame  was  laid  upon  other 
shoulders.  She  was  easily  consoled,  however,  and  fell 
back  on  the  double  reflection,  firstly,  that  her  son  was 
pure,  and  secondly,  that  she  was  quite  sure  he  would  not 
have  been  so  had  it  not  been  for  his  religious  convictions 
which  had  held  him  back — as,  of  course,  it  was  only  to 
be  expected  they  would. 

Theobald  agreed  that  no  time  must  be  lost  in  paying 
Ellen  her  wages  and  packing  her  off.  So  this  was  done, 
and  less  than  two  hours  after  Dr.  Martin  had  entered 
the  house  Ellen  was  sitting  beside  John  the  coachman, 
with  her  face  muffled  up  so  that  it  could  not  be  seen, 
weeping  bitterly  as  she  was  being  driven  to  the  station. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

ERNEST  had  been  out  all  the  morning,  but  came  in  to  the 
yard  of  the  Rectory  from  the  spinney  behind  the  house 
just  as  Ellen's  things  were  being  put  into  the  carriage. 
He  thought  it  was  Ellen  whom  he  then  saw  get  into  the 
carriage,  but  as  her  face  had  been  hidden  by  her  hand- 
kerchief he  had  not  been  able  to  see  plainly  who  it  was, 
and  dismissed  the  idea  as  improbable. 

He  went  to  the  back-kitchen  window,  at  which  the 
cook  was  standing  peeling  the  potatoes  for  dinner,  and 
found  her  crying  bitterly.  Ernest  was  much  distressed, 
for  he  liked  the  cook,  and,  of  course,  wanted  to  know 
what  all  the  matter  was,  who  it  was  that  had  just  gone 
off  in  the  pony  carriage,  and  why?  The  cook  told  him 
it  was  Ellen,  but  said  that  no  earthly  power  should  make 
it  cross  her  lips  why  it  was  she  was  going  away;  when, 
however,  Ernest  took  her  au  pied  de  la  lettre  and  asked 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         187 

no  further  questions,  she  told  him  all  about  it  after  ex- 
torting the  most  solemn  promises  of  secrecy. 

It  took  Ernest  some  minutes  to  arrive  at  the  facts  of 
the  case,  but  when  he  understood  them  he  leaned  against 
the  pump,  which  stood  near  the  back-kitchen  window, 
and  mingled  his  tears  with  the  cook's. 

Then  his  blood  began  to  boil  within  him.  He  did  not 
see  that  after  all  his  father  and  mother  could  have  done 
much  otherwise  than  they  actually  did.  They  might  per- 
haps have  been  less  precipitate,  and  tried  to  keep  the 
matter  a  little  more  quiet,  but  this  would  not  have  been 
easy,  nor  would  it  have  mended  things  very  materially. 
The  bitter  fact  remains  that  if  a  girl  does  certain  things 
she  must  do  them  at  her  peril,  no  matter  how  young 
and  pretty  she  is  nor  to  what  temptation  she  has  sue- 
cumbed.  This  is  the  way  of  the  world,  and  as  yet  there 
has  been  no  help  found  for  it. 

Ernest  could  only  see  what  he  gathered  from  the  cook, 
namely,  that  his  favourite,  Ellen,  was  being  turned  adrift 
with  a  matter  of  three  pounds  in  her  pocket,  to  go  she 
knew  not  where,  and  to  do  she  knew  not  what,  and  that 
she  had  said  she  should  hang  or  drown  herself,  which  the 
boy  implicitly  believed  she  would. 

With  greater  promptitude  than  he  had  shown  yet,  he 
reckoned  up  his  money  and  found  he  had  two  shillings 
and  threepence  at  his  command;  there  was  his  knife 
which  might  sell  for  a  shilling,  and  there  was  the  silver 
watch  his  Aunt  Alethea  had  given  him  shortly  before 
she  died.  The  carriage  had  been  gone  now  a  full  quarter 
of  an  hour,  and  it  must  have  got  some  distance  ahead, 
but  he  would  do  his  best  to  catch  it  up,  and  there  were 
short  cuts  which  would  perhaps  give  him  a  chance.  He 
was  off  at  once,  and  from  the  top  of  the  hill  just  past 
the  Rectory  paddock  he  could  see  the  carriage,  looking 
very  small,  on  a  bit  of  road  which  showed  perhaps  a 
mile  and  a  half  in  front  of  him. 

One  of  the  most  popular  amusements  at  Roughborough 


i88         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

was  an  institution  called  "the  hounds" — more  commonly 
known  elsewhere  as  "hare  and  hounds,"  but  in  this  case 
the  hare  was  a  couple  of  boys  who  were  called  foxes, 
and  boys  are  so  particular  about  correctness  of  nomen- 
clature where  their  sports  are  concerned  that  I  dare  not 
say  they  played  "hare  and  hounds";  these  were  "the 
hounds,"  and  that  was  all.  Ernest's  want  of  muscular 
strength  did  not  tell  against  him  here;  there  was  no 
jostling  up  against  boys  who,  though  neither  older  nor 
taller  than  he,  were  yet  more  robustly  built ;  if  it  came  to 
mere  endurance  he  was  as  good  as  any  one  else,  so  when 
his  carpentering  was  stopped  he  had  naturally  taken  to 
"the  hounds"  as  his  favourite  amusement.  His  lungs  thus 
exercised  had  become  developed,  and  as  a  run  of  six  or 
seven  miles  across  country  was  not  more  than  he  was 
used  to,  he  did  not  despair  by  the  help  of  the  short  cuts 
of  overtaking  the  carriage,  or  at  the  worst  of  catching 
Ellen  at  the  station  before  the  train  left.  So  he  ran  and 
ran  and  ran  till  his  first  wind  was  gone  and  his  second 
came,  and  he  could  breathe  more  easily.  Never  with 
"the  hounds"  had  he  run  so  fast  and  with  so  few  breaks 
as  now,  but  with  all  his  efforts  and  the  help  of  the  short 
cuts  he  did  not  catch  up  the  carriage,  and  would  prob- 
ably not  have  done  so  had  not  John  happened  to  turn  his 
head  and  seen  him  running  and  making  signs  for  the 
carriage  to  stop  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off.  He  was  now 
about  five  miles  from  home,  and  was  nearly  done  up. 

He  was  crimson  with  his  exertion ;  covered  with  dust, 
and  with  his  trousers  and  coat  sleeves  a  trifle  short  for 
him  he  cut  a  poor  figure  enough  as  he  thrust  on  Ellen 
his  watch,  his  knife,  and  the  little  money  he  had.  The 
one  thing  he  implored  of  her  was  not  to  do  those  dread- 
ful things  which  she  threatened — for  his  sake  if  for  no 
other  reason. 

Ellen  at  first  would  not  hear  of  taking  anything  from 
him,  but  the  coachman,  who  was  from  the  north  country, 
sided  with  Ernest.  "Take  it,  my  lass,"  he  said  kindly; 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         189 

"take  what  thou  canst  get  whiles  thou  canst  get  it;  as 
for  Master  Ernest  here — he  has  run  well  after  thee; 
therefore  let  him  give  thee  what  he  is  minded." 

Ellen  did  what  she  was  told,  and  the  two  parted  with 
many  tears,  the  girl's  last  words  being  that  she  should 
never  forget  him,  and  that  they  should  meet  again  here- 
after, she  was  sure  they  should,  and  then  she  would 
repay  him. 

Then  Ernest  got  into  a  field  by  the  roadside,  flung 
himself  on  the  grass,  and  waited  under  the  shadow  of  a 
hedge  till  the  carriage  should  pass  on  its  return  from  the 
station  and  pick  him  up,  for  he  was  dead  beat.  Thoughts 
which  had  already  occurred  to  him  with  some  force  now 
came  more  strongly  before  him,  and  he  saw  that  he  had 
got  himself  into  one  mess — or  rather  into  a  half-a-dozen 
messes — the  more. 

In  the  first  place  he  should  be  late  for  dinner,  and  this 
was  one  of  the  offences  on  which  Theobald  had  no  mercy. 
Also  he  should  have  to  say  where  he  had  been,  and  there 
was  a  danger  of  being  found  out  if  he  did  not  speak  the 
truth.  Not  only  this,  but  sooner  or  later  it  must  come  out 
that  he  was  no  longer  possessed  of  the  beautiful  watch 
which  his  dear  aunt  had  given  him — and  what,  pray,  had 
he  done  with  it,  or  how  had  he  lost  it?  The  reader  will 
know  very  well  what  he  ought  to  have  done.  He  should 
have  gone  straight  home,  and  if  questioned  should  have 
said,  "I  have  been  running  after  the  carriage  to  catch  our 
housemaid  Ellen,  whom  I  am  very  fond  of ;  I  have  given 
her  my  watch,  my  knife  and  all  my  pocket  money,  so  that 
I  have  now  no  pocket  money  at  all  and  shall  probably  ask 
you  for  some  more  sooner  than  I  otherwise  might  have 
done,  and  you  will  also  have  to  buy  me  a  new  watch  and 
a  knife."  But  then  fancy  the  consternation  which  such 
an  announcement  would  have  occasioned!  Fancy  the 
scowl  and  flashing  eyes  of  the  infuriated  Theobald ! 
"You  unprincipled  young  scoundrel,"  he  would  exclaim, 
"do  you  mean  to  vilify  your  own  parents  by  implying 


190         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

that  they  have  dealt  harshly  by  one  whose  profligacy  has 
disgraced  their  house?" 

Or  he  might  take  it  with  one  of  those  sallies  of  sar- 
castic calm,  of  which  he  believed  himself  to  be  a  master. 

"Very  well,  Ernest,  very  well:  I  shall  say  nothing; 
you  can  please  yourself ;  you  are  not  yet  twenty-one,  but 
pray  act  as  if  you  were  your  own  master;  your  poor 
aunt  doubtless  gave  you  the  watch  that  you  might  fling 
it  away  upon  the  first  improper  character  you  came 
across ;  I  think  I  can  now  understand,  however,  why  she 
did  not  leave  you  her  money;  and,  after  all,  your  god- 
father may  just  as  well  have  it  as  the  kind  of  people  on 
whom  you  would  lavish  it  if  it  were  yours." 

Then  his  mother  would  burst  into  tears  and  implore 
him  to  repent  and  seek  the  things  belonging  to  his  peace 
while  there  was  yet  time,  by  falling  on  his  knees  to  Theo- 
bald and  assuring  him  of  his  unfailing  love  for  him  as 
the  kindest  and  tenderest  father  in  the  universe.  Ernest 
could  do  all  this  just  as  well  as  they  could,  and  now,  as 
he  lay  on  the  grass,  speeches,  some  one  or  other  of  which 
was  as  certain  to  come  as  the  sun  to  set,  kept  running  in 
his  head  till  they  confuted  the  idea  of  telling  the  truth 
by  reducing  it  to  an  absurdity.  Truth  might  be  heroic, 
but  it  was  not  within  the  range  of  practical  domestic 
politics. 

Having  settled  then  that  he  was  to  tell  a  lie,  what  lie 
should  he  tell  ?  Should  he  say  he  had  been  robbed  ?  He 
had  enough  imagination  to  know  that  he  had  not  enough 
imagination  to  carry  him  out  here.  Young  as  he  was,  his 
instinct  told  him  that  the  best  liar  is  he  who  makes  the 
smallest  amount  of  lying  go  the  longest  way — who  hus- 
bands it  too  carefully  to  waste  it  where  it  can  be  dis- 
pensed with.  The  simplest  course  would  be  to  say  that 
he  had  lost  the  watch,  and  was  late  for  dinner  because  he 
had  been  looking  for  it.  He  had  been  out  for  a  long 
walk — he  chose  the  line  across  the  fields  that  he  had 
actually  taken — and  the  weather  being  very  hot,  he  had 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         191 

taken  off  his  coat  and  waistcoat ;  in  carrying  them  over 
his  arm  his  watch,  his  money,  and  his  knife  had  dropped 
out  of  them.  He  had  got  nearly  home  when  he  found 
out  his  loss,  and  had  run  back  as  fast  as  he  could,  look- 
ing along  the  line  he  had  followed,  till  at  last  he  had 
given  it  up;  seeing  the  carriage  coming  back  from  the 
station,  he  had  let  it  pick  him  up  and  bring  him  home. 

This  covered  everything,  the  running  and  all;  for  his 
face  still  showed  that  he  must  have  been  running  hard; 
the  only  question  was  whether  he  had  been  seen  about 
the  Rectory  by  any  but  the  servants  for  a  couple  of  hours 
or  so  before  Ellen  had  gone,  and  this  he  was  happy  to 
believe  was  not  the  case;  for  he  had  been  out  except 
during  his  few  minutes'  interview  with  the  cook.  His 
father  had  been  out  in  the  parish ;  his  mother  had  cer- 
tainly not  come  across  him,  and  his  brother  and  sister  had 
also  been  out  with  the  governess.  He  knew  he  could  de- 
pend upon  the  cook  and  the  other  servants — the  coach- 
man would  see  to  this ;  on  the  whole,  therefore,  both  he 
and  the  coachman  thought  the  story  as  proposed  by 
Ernest  would  about  meet  the  requirements  of  the  case. 


CHAPTER  XL 

WHEN  Ernest  got  home  and  sneaked  in  through  the  back 
door,  he  heard  his  father's  voice  in  its  angriest  tones,  in- 
quiring whether  Master  Ernest  had  already  returned. 
He  felt  as  Jack  must  have  felt  in  the  story  of  Jack  and 
the  Bean  Stalk,  when  from  the  oven  in  which  he  was 
hidden  he  heard  the  ogre  ask  his  wife  what  young  chil- 
dren she  had  got  for  his  supper.  With  much  courage, 
and,  as  the  event  proved,  with  not  less  courage  than  dis- 
cretion, he  took  the  bull  by  the  horns,  and  announced 
himself  at  once  as  having  just  come  in  after  having  met 
with  a  terrible  misfortune.  Little  by  little  he  told  his 
story,  and  though  Theobald  stormed  somewhat  at  his 


192         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

"incredible  folly  and  carelessness,"  he  got  off  better  than 
he  expected.  Theobald  and  Christina  had  indeed  at  first 
been  inclined  to  connect  his  absence  from  dinner  with 
Ellen's  dismissal,  but  on  finding  it  clear,  as  Theobald 
said — everything  was  always  clear  with  Theobald — that 
Ernest  had  not  been  in  the  house  all  the  morning,  and 
could  therefore  have  known  nothing  of  what  had  hap- 
pened, he  was  acquitted  on  this  account  for  once  in  a 
way,  without  a  stain  upon  his  character.  Perhaps  Theo- 
bald was  in  a  good  temper;  he  may  have  seen  from  the 
paper  that  morning  that  his  stocks  had  been  rising;  it 
may  have  been  this  or  twenty  other  things,  but  what- 
ever it  was,  he  did  not  scold  so  much  as  Ernest  had  ex- 
pected, and,  seeing  the  boy  look  exhausted  and  believing 
him  to  be  much  grieved  at  the  loss  of  his  watch,  Theo- 
bald actually  prescribed  a  glass  of  wine  after  his 
dinner,  which,  strange  to  say,  did  not  choke  him,  but 
made  him  see  things  more  cheerfully  than  was  usual 
with  him. 

That  night  when  he  said  his  prayers,  he  inserted  a  few 
paragraphs  to  the  effect  that  he  might  not  be  discovered, 
and  that  things  might  go  well  with  Ellen,  but  he  was 
anxious  and  ill  at  ease.  His  guilty  conscience  pointed  out 
to  him  a  score  of  weak  places  in  his  story,  through  any 
one  of  which  detection  might  even  yet  easily  enter.  Next 
day  and  for  many  days  afterwards  he  fled  when  no  man 
was  pursuing,  and  trembled  each  time  he  heard  his 
father's  voice  calling  for  him.  He  had  already  so  many 
causes  of  anxiety  that  he  could  stand  little  more,  and  in 
spite  of  all  his  endeavours  to  look  cheerful,  even  his 
mother  could  see  that  something  was  preying  upon  his 
mind.  Then  the  idea  returned  to  her  that,  after  all,  her 
son  might  not  be  innocent  in  the  Ellen  matter — and  this 
was  so  interesting  that  she  felt  bound  to  get  as  near  the 
truth  as  she  could. 

"Come  here,  my  poor,  pale-faced,  heavy-eyed  boy,"  she 
said  to  him  one  day  in  her  kindest  manner;  "come  and 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         193 

sit  down  by  me,  and  we  will  have  a  little  quiet  confidential 
talk  together,  will  we  not?" 

The  boy  went  mechanically  to  the  sofa.  Whenever  his 
mother  wanted  what  she  called  a  confidential  talk  with 
him  she  always  selected  the  sofa  as  the  most  suitable 
ground  on  which  to  open  her  campaign.  All  mothers  do 
this;  the  sofa  is  to  them  what  the  dining-room  is  to 
fathers.  In  the  present  case  the  sofa  was  particularly 
well  adapted  for  a  strategic  purpose,  being  an  old-fash- 
ioned one  with  a  high  back,  mattress,  bolsters  and  cush- 
ions. Once  safely  penned  into  one  of  its  deep  corners, 
it  was  like  a  dentist's  chair,  not  too  easy  to  get  out  of 
again.  Here  she  could  get  at  him  better  to  pull  him 
about,  if  this  should  seem  desirable,  or  if  she  thought  fit 
to  cry  she  could  bury  her  head  in  the  sofa  cushion  and 
abandon  herself  to  an  agony  of  grief  which  seldom 
failed  of  its  effect.  None  of  her  favourite  manoeuvres 
were  so  easily  adopted  in  her  usual  seat,  the  armchair 
on  the  right  hand  side  of  the  fireplace,  and  so  well  did 
her  son  know  from  his  mother's  tone  that  this  was  going 
to  be  a  sofa  conversation  that  he  took  his  place  like  a 
lamb  as  soon  as  she  began  to  speak  and  before  she  could 
reach  the  sofa  herself. 

"My  dearest  boy,"  began  his  mother,  taking  hold  of  his 
hand  and  placing  it  within  her  own,  "promise  me  never 
to  be  afraid  either  of  your  dear  papa  or  of  me;  promise 
me  this,  my  dear,  as  you  love  me,  promise  it  to  me,"  and 
she  kissed  him  again  and  again  and  stroked  his  hair.  But 
with  her  other  hand  she  still  kept  hold  of  his;  she  had 
got  him  and  she  meant  to  keep  him. 

The  lad  hung  down  his  head  and  promised.  What  else 
could  he  do? 

"You  know  there  is  no  one,  dear,  dear  Ernest,  who 
loves  you  so  much  as  your  papa  and  I  do;  no  one  who 
watches  so  carefully  over  your  interests  or  who  is  so 
anxious  to  enter  into  all  your  little  joys  and  troubles  as 
we  are ;  but,  my  dearest  boy,  it  grieves  me  to  think  some- 


194         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

times  that  you  have  not  that  perfect  love  for  and  con- 
fidence in  us  which  you  ought  to  have.  You  know,  my 
darling,  that  it  would  be  as  much  our  pleasure  as  our 
duty  to  watch  over  the  development  of  your  moral  and 
spiritual  nature,  but  alas !  you  will  not  let  us  see  your 
moral  and  spiritual  nature.  At  times  we  are  almost  in- 
clined to  doubt  whether  you  have  a  moral  and  spiritual 
nature  at  all.  Of  your  inner  life,  my  dear,  we  know 
nothing  beyond  such  scraps  as  we  can  glean  in  spite  of 
you,  from  little  things  which  escape  you  almost  before 
you  know  that  you  have  said  them." 

The  boy  winced  at  this.  It  made  him  feel  hot  and  un- 
comfortable all  over.  He  knew  well  how  careful  he  ought 
to  be,  and  yet,  do  what  he  could,  from  time  to  time  his 
forgetfulness  of  the  part  betrayed  him  into  unreserve. 
His  mother  saw  that  he  winced,  and  enjoyed  the  scratch 
she  had  given  him.  Had  she  felt  less  confident  of  vic- 
tory she  had  better  have  foregone  the  pleasure  of  touch- 
ing as  it  were  the  eyes  at  the  end  of  the  snail's  horns  in 
order  to  enjoy  seeing  the  snail  draw  them  in  again — 
but  she  knew  that  when  she  had  got  him  well  down  into 
the  sofa,  and  held  his  hand,  she  had  the  enemy  almost 
absolutely  at  her  mercy,  and  could  do  pretty  much  what 
she  liked. 

"Papa  does  not  feel,"  she  continued,  "that  you  love 
him  with  that  fulness  and  unreserve  which  would  prompt 
you  to  have  no  concealment  from  him,  and  to  tell  him 
everything  freely  and  fearlessly  as  your  most  loving 
earthly  friend  next  only  to  your  Heavenly  Father.  Per- 
fect love,  as  we  know,  casteth  out  fear :  your  father  loves 
you  perfectly,  my  darling,*  but  he  does  not  feel  as  though 
you  loved  him  perfectly  in  return.  If  you  fear  him  it  is 
because  you  do  not  love  him  as  he  deserves,  and  I  know 
it  sometimes  cuts  him  to  the  very  heart  to  think  that  he 
has  earned  from  you  a  deeper  and  more  willing  sympathy 
than  you  display  towards  him.  Oh,  Ernest,  Ernest,  do 
not  grieve  one  who  is  so  good  and  noble-hearted  by 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         195 

conduct  which  I  can  call  by  no  other  name  than  ingrati- 
tude." 

Ernest  could  never  stand  being  spoken  to  in  this  way 
by  his  mother:  for  he  still  believed  that  she  loved  him, 
and  that  he  was  fond  of  her  and  had  a  friend  in  her — 
up  to  a  certain  point.  But  his  mother  was  beginning  to 
come  to  the  end  of  her  tether ;  she  had  played  the  domes- 
tic confidence  trick  upon  him  times  without  number  al- 
ready. Over  and  over  again  had  she  wheedled  from  him 
all  she  wanted  to  know,  and  afterwards  got  him  into 
the  most  horrible  scrape  by  telling  the  whole  to  Theobald. 
Ernest  had  remonstrated  more  than  once  upon  these  occa- 
sions, and  had  pointed  out  to  his  mother  how  disastrous 
to  him  his  confidences  had  been,  but  Christina  had  always 
joined  issue  with  him  and  showed  him  in  the  clearest 
possible  manner  that  in  each  case  she  had  been  right, 
and  that  he  could  not  reasonably  complain.  Generally  it 
was  her  conscience  that  forbade  her  to  be  silent,  and 
against  this  there  was  no  appeal,  for  we  are  all  bound 
to  follow  the  dictates  of  our  conscience.  Ernest  used  to 
have  to  recite  a  hymn  about  conscience.  It  was  to  the 
effect  that  if  you  did  not  pay  attention  to  its  voice  it 
would  soon  leave  off  speaking.  "My  mamma's  conscience 
has  not  left  off  speaking,"  said  Ernest  to  one  of  his  chums 
at  Roughborough ;  "it's  always  jabbering." 

When  a  boy  has  once  spoken  so  disrespectfully  as  this 
about  his  mother's  conscience  it  is  practically  all  over  be- 
tween him  and  her.  Ernest  through  sheer  force  of  habit, 
of  the  sofa,  and  of  the  return  of  the  associated  ideas,  was 
still  so  moved  by  the  siren's  voice  as  to  yearn  to  sail 
towards  her,  and  fling  himself  into  her  arms,  but  it  would 
not  do ;  there  were  other  associated  ideas  that  returned 
also,  and  the  mangled  bones  of  too  many  murdered  con- 
fessions were  lying  whitening  round  the  skirts  of  his 
mother's  dress,  to  allow  him  by  any  possibility  to  trust 
her  further.  So  he  hung  his  head  and  looked  sheepish, 
but  kept  his  own  counsel. 


196         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

"I  see,  my  dearest,"  continued  his  mother,  "either  that 
I  am  mistaken,  and  that  there  is  nothing  on  your  mind, 
or  that  you  will  not  unburden  yourself  to  me:  but  oh, 
Ernest,  tell  me  at  least  this  much;  is  there  nothing  that 
you  repent  of,  nothing  which  makes  you  unhappy  in  con- 
nection with  that  miserable  girl  Ellen  ?" 

Ernest's  heart  failed  him.  "I  am  a  dead  boy  now," 
he  said  to  himself.  He  had  not  the  faintest  conception 
what  his  mother  was  driving  at,  and  thought  she  sus- 
pected about  the  watch ;  but  he  held  his  ground. 

I  do  not  believe  he  was  much  more  of  a  coward  than 
his  neighbours,  only  he  did  not  know  that  all  sensible 
people  are  cowards  when  they  are  off  their  beat,  or  when 
they  think  they  are  going  to  be  roughly  handled.  I  be- 
lieve that  if  the  truth  were  known,  it  would  be  found 
that  even  the  valiant  St.  Michael  himself  tried  hard  to 
shirk  his  famous  combat  with  the  dragon;  he  pretended 
not  to  see  all  sorts  of  misconduct  on  the  dragon's  part; 
shut  his  eyes  to  the  eating  up  of  I  do  not  know  how  many 
hundreds  of  men,  women  and  children  whom  he  had 
promised  to  protect;  allowed  himself  to  be  publicly  in- 
sulted a  dozen  times  over  without  resenting  it ;  and  in  the 
end,  when  even  an  angel  could  stand  it  no  longer,  he 
shilly-shallied  and  temporised  an  unconscionable  time 
before  he  would  fix  the  day  and  hour  for  the  encounter. 
As  for  the  actual  combat  it  was  much  such  another 
wurra-wurra  as  Mrs.  Allaby  had  had  with  the  young  man 
who  had  in  the  end  married  her  eldest  daughter,  till 
after  a  time,  behold,  there  was  the  dragon  lying  dead, 
while  he  was  himself  alive  and  not  very  seriously  hurt 
after  all. 

"I  do  not  know  what  you  mean,  mamma,"  exclaimed 
Ernest  anxiously  and  more  or  less  hurriedly.  His  mother 
construed  his  manner  into  indignation  at  being  suspected, 
and  being  rather  frightened  herself  she  turned  tail  and 
scuttled  off  as  fast  as  her  tongue  could  carry  her. 

"Oh!"  she  said,  "I  see  by  your  tone  that  you  are 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         197 

innocent !  Oh !  oh !  how  I  thank  my  heavenly  Father  for 
this ;  may  He  for  His  dear  Son's  sake  keep  you  always 
pure.  Your  father,  my  dear" — (here  she  spoke  hurriedly 
but  gave  him  a  searching  look)  "was  as  pure  as  a  spot- 
less angel  when  he  came  to  me.  Like  him,  always  be 
self-denying,  truly  truthful  both  in  word  and  deed,  never 
forgetful  whose  son  and  grandson  you  are,  nor  of  the 
name  we  gave  you,  of  the  sacred  stream  in  whose  waters 
your  sins  were  washed  out  of  you  through  the  blood  and 
blessing  of  Christ,"  etc. 

But  Ernest  cut  this — I  will  not  say  short — but  a  great 
deal  shorter  than  it  would  have  been  if  Christina  had  had 
her  say  out,  by  extricating  himself  from  his  mamma's 
embrace  and  snowing  a  clean  pair  of  heels.  As  he  got 
near  the  purlieus  of  the  kitchen  (where  he  was  more  at 
ease)  he  heard  his  father  calling  for  his  mother,  and 
again  his  guilty  conscience  rose  against  him.  "He  has 
found  all  out  now,"  it  cried,  "and  he  is  going  to  tell 
mamma — this  time  I  am  done  for."  But  there  was  noth- 
ing in  it;  his  father  only  wanted  the  key  of  the  cellaret. 
Then  Ernest  slunk  off  into  a  coppice  or  spinney  behind 
the  Rectory  paddock,  and  consoled  himself  with  a  pipe  of 
tobacco.  Here  in  the  wood  with  the  summer  sun  stream- 
ing through  the  trees  and  a  book  and  his  pipe  the  boy 
forgot  his  cares  and  had  an  interval  of  that  rest  without 
which  I  verily  believe  his  life  would  have  been  insupport- 
able. 

Of  course,  Ernest  was  made  to  look  for  his  lost  prop- 
erty, and  a  reward  was  offered  for  it,  but  it  seemed  he 
had  wandered  a  good  deal  off  the  path,  thinking  to  find 
a  lark's  nest,  more  than  once,  and  looking  for  a  watch 
and  purse  on  Battersby  piewipes  was  very  like  looking 
for  a  needle  in  a  bundle  of  hay:  besides  it  might  have, 
been  found  and  taken  by  some  tramp,  or  by  a  magpie 
of  which  there  were  many  in  the  neighbourhood,  so  that 
after  a  week  or  ten  days  the  search  was  discontinued, 
and  the  unpleasant  fact  had  to  be  faced  that  Ernest  must 


198         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

have  another  watch,  another  knife,  and  a  small  sum  of 
pocket  money. 

It  was  only  right,  however,  that  Ernest  should  pay 
half  the  cost  of  the  watch ;  this  should  be  made  easy  for 
him,  for  it  should  be  deducted  from  his  pocket  money 
in  half-yearly  instalments  extending  over  two,  or  even  it 
might  be  three  years.  In  Ernest's  own  interests,  then, 
as  well  as  those  of  his  father  and  mother,  it  would  be 
well  that  the  watch  should  cost  as  little  as  possible,  so 
it  was  resolved  to  buy  a  second-hand  one.  Nothing  was 
to  be  said  to  Ernest,  but  it  was  to  be  bought,  and  laid 
upon  his  plate  as  a  surprise  just  before  the  holidays  were 
over.  Theobald  would  have  to  go  to  the  county  town 
in  a  few  days,  and  could  then  find  some  second-hand 
watch  which  would  answer  sufficiently  well.  In  the 
course  of  time,  therefore,  Theobald  went,  furnished  with 
a  long  list  of  household  commissions,  among  which  was 
the  purchase  of  a  watch  for  Ernest. 

Those,  as  I  have  said,  were  always  happy  times,  when 
Theobald  was  away  for  a  whole  day  certain;  the  boy 
was  beginning  to  feel  easy  in  his  mind  as  though  God 
had  heard  his  prayers,  and  he  was  not  going  to  be  found 
out.  Altogether  the  day  had  proved  an  unusually  tran- 
quil one,  but,  alas!  it  was  not  to  close  as  it  had  begun; 
the  fickle  atmosphere  in  which  he  lived  was  never  more 
likely  to  breed  a  storm  than  after  such  an  interval  of 
brilliant  calm,  and  when  Theobald  returned  Ernest  had 
only  to  look  in  his  face  to  see  that  a  hurricane  was 
approaching. 

Christina  saw  that  something  had  gone  very  wrong, 
and  was  quite  frightened  lest  Theobald  should  have  heard 
of  some  serious  money  loss ;  he  did  not,  however,  at  once 
unbosom  himself,  but  rang  the  bell  and  said  to  the  serv- 
ant, "Tell  Master  Ernest  I  wish  to  speak  to  him  in  the 
dining-room." 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         199 


CHAPTER  XLI 

LONG  before  Ernest  reached  the  dining-room  his  ill- 
divining  soul  had  told  him  that  his  sin  had  found  him 
out.  What  head  of  a  family  ever  sends  for  any  of  its 
members  into  the  dining-room  if  his  intentions  are 
honourable  ? 

When  he  reached  it  he  found  it  empty — his  father 
having  been  called  away  for  a  few  minutes  unexpectedly 
upon  some  parish  business — and  he  was  left  in  the  same 
kind  of  suspense  as  people  are  in  after  they  have  been 
ushered  into  their  dentist's  ante-room. 

Of  all  the  rooms  in  the  house  he  hated  the  dining-room 
worst.  It  was  here  that  he  had  had  to  do  his  Latin  and 
Greek  lessons  with  his  father.  It  had  a  smell  of  some 
particular  kind  of  polish  or  varnish  which  was  used  in 
polishing  the  furniture,  and  neither  I  nor  Ernest  can  even 
now  come  within  range  of  the  smell  of  this  kind  of 
varnish  without  our  hearts  failing  us. 

Over  the  chimney-piece  there  was  a  veritable  old  mas- 
ter, one  of  the  few  original  pictures  which  Mr.  George 
Pontifex  had  brought  from  Italy.  It  was  supposed  to  be 
a  Salvator  Rosa,  and  had  been  bought  as  a  great  bargain. 
The  subject  was  Elijah  or  Elisha  (whichever  it  was) 
being  fed  by  the  ravens  in  the  desert.  There  were  the 
ravens  in  the  upper  right-hand  corner  with  bread  and 
meat  in  their  beaks  and  claws,  and  there  was  the  prophet 
in  question  in  the  lower  left-hand  corner  looking  long- 
ingly up  towards  them.  When  Ernest  was  a  very  small 
boy  it  had  been  a  constant  matter  of  regret  to  him  that 
the  food  which  the  ravens  carried  never  actually  reached 
the  prophet;  he  did  not  understand  the  limitation  of  the 
painter's  art,  and  wanted  the  meat  and  the  prophet  to 
be  brought  into  direct  contact.  One  day,  with  the  help 
of  some  steps  which  had  been  left  in  the  room,  he  had 
clambered  up  to  the  picture  and  with  a  piece  of  bread  and 


200         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

butter  traced  a  greasy  line  right  across  it  from  the  ravens 
to  Elisha's  mouth,  after  which  he  had  felt  more  com- 
fortable. 

Ernest's  mind  was  drifting  back  to  this  youthful  es- 
capade when  he  heard  his  father's  hand  on  the  door,  and 
in  another  second  Theobald  entered. 

"Oh,  Ernest,"  said  he,  in  an  off-hand,  rather  cheery 
manner,  "there's  a  little  matter  which  I  should  like  you 
to  explain  to  me,  as  I  have  no  doubt  you  very  easily 
can."  Thump,  thump,  thump,  went  Ernest's  heart  against 
his  ribs ;  but  his  father's  manner  was  so  much  nicer  than 
usual  that  he  began  to  think  it  might  be  after  all  only 
another  false  alarm. 

"It  had  occurred  to  your  mother  and  myself  that  we 
should  like  to  set  you  up  with  a  watch  again  before  you 
went  back  to  school"  ("Oh,  that's  all,"  said  Ernest  to 
himself,  quite  relieved),  "and  I  have  been  to-day  to  look 
out  for  a  second-hand  one  which  should  answer  every 
purpose  so  long  as  you  are  at  school." 

Theobald  spoke  as  if  watches  had  half-a-dozen  pur- 
poses besides  time-keeping,  but  he  could  hardly  open  his 
mouth  without  using  one  or  other  of  his  tags,  and  "an- 
swering every  purpose"  was  one  of  them. 

Ernest  was  breaking  out  into  the  usual  expressions  of 
gratitude,  when  Theobald  continued,  "You  are  interrupt- 
ing me,"  and  Ernest's  heart  thumped  again. 

"You  are  interrupting  me,  Ernest.  I  have  not  yet 
done."  Ernest  was  instantly  dumb. 

"I  passed  several  shops  with  second-hand  watches  for 
sale,  but  I  saw  none  of  a  description  and  price  which 
pleased  me,  till  at  last  I  was  shown  one  which  had,  so  the 
shopman  said,  been  left  with  him  recently  for  sale,  and 
which  I  at  once  recognised  as  the  one  which  had  beep- 
given  you  by  your  Aunt  Alethea.  Even  if  I  had  failed  to 
recognise  it,  as  perhaps  I  might  have  done,  I  should  have 
identified  it  directly  it  reached  my  hands,  inasmuch  as  it 
had  'E.  P.,  a  present  from  A.  P.'  engraved  upon  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         201 

inside.  I  need  say  no  more  to  show  that  this  was  the 
very  watch  which  you  told  your  mother  and  me  that  you 
had  dropped  out  of  your  pocket." 

Up  to  this  time  Theobald's  manner  had  been  studiously 
calm,  and  his  words  had  been  uttered  slowly,  but  here  he 
suddenly  quickened  and  flung  off  the  mask  as  he  added 
the  words,  "or  some  such  cock  and  bull  story,  which  your 
mother  and  I  were  too  truthful  to  disbelieve.  You  can 
guess  what  must  be  our  feelings  now." 

Ernest  felt  that  this  last  home-thrust  was  just.  In  his 
less  anxious  moments  he  had  thought  his  papa  and 
mamma  "green"  for  the  readiness  with  which  they  be- 
lieved him,  but  he  could  not  deny  that  their  credulity  was 
a  proof  of  their  habitual  truthfulness  of  mind.  In  com- 
mon justice  he  must  own  that  it  was  very  dreadfttl  for 
two  such  truthful  people  to  have  a  son  as  untruthful  as 
he  knew  himself  to  be. 

"Believing  that  a  son  of  your  mother  and  myself  would 
be  incapable  of  falsehood  I  at  once  assumed  that  some 
tramp  had  picked  the  watch  up  and  was  now  trying  to 
dispose  of  it." 

This,  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  was  not  accurate.  Theo- 
bald's first  assumption  had  been  that  it  was  Ernest  who 
was  trying  to  sell  the  watch,  and  it  was  an  inspiration  of 
the  moment  to  say  that  his  magnanimous  mind  had  at 
once  conceived  the  idea  of  a  tramp. 

"You  may  imagine  how  shocked  I  was  when  I  dis- 
covered that  the  watch  had  been  brought  for  sale  by  that 
miserable  woman  Ellen" — here  Ernest's  heart  hardened  a 
little,  and  he  felt  as  near  an  approach  to  an  instinct  to 
turn  as  one  so  defenceless  could  be  expected  to  feel; 
his  father  quickly  perceived  this  and  continued,  "who 
was  turned  out  of  this  house  in  circumstances  which 
I  will  not  pollute  your  ears  by  more  particularly  de- 
scribing. 

"I  put  aside  the  horrid  conviction  which  was  begin- 
ning to  dawn  upon  me,  and  assumed  that  in  the  interval 


202         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

between  her  dismissal  and  her  leaving  this  house,  she  had 
added  theft  to  her  other  sin,  and  having  found  your 
watch  in  your  bedroom  had  purloined  it.  It  even  occurred 
to  me  that  you  might  have  missed  your  watch  after  the 
woman  was  gone,  and,  suspecting  who  had  taken  it,  had 
run  after  the  carriage  in  order  to  recover  it ;  but  when  I 
told  the  shopman  of  my  suspicions  he  assured  me  that 
the  person  who  left  it  with  him  had  declared  most 
solemnly  that  it  had  been  given  her  by  her  master's  son, 
whose  property  it  was,  and  who  had  a  perfect  right  to 
dispose  of  it. 

"He  told  me  further  that,  thinking  the  circumstances  in 
which  the  watch  was  offered  for  sale  somewhat  sus- 
picious, he  had  insisted  upon  the  woman's  telling  him  the 
whole  story  of  how  she  came  by  it,  before  he  would 
consent  to  buy  it  of  her. 

"He  said  that  at  first — as  women  of  that  stamp  in- 
variably do — she  tried  prevarication,  but  on  being  threat- 
ened that  she  should  at  once  be  given  into  custody  if  she 
did  not  tell  the  whole  truth,  she  described  the  way  in 
which  you  had  run  after  the  carriage,  till  as  she  said  you 
were  black  in  the  face,  and  insisted  on  giving  her  all  your 
pocket  money,  your  knife  and  your  watch.  She  added 
that  my  coachman  John — whom  I  shall  instantly  dis- 
charge— was  witness  to  the  whole  transaction.  Now, 
Ernest,  be  pleased  to  tell  me  whether  this  appalling  story 
is  true  or  false?" 

It  never  occurred  to  Ernest  to  ask  his  father  why  he 
did  not  hit  a  man  his  own  size,  or  to  stop  him  midway 
in  the  story  with  a  remonstrance  against  being  kicked 
when  he  was  down.  The  boy  was  too  much  shocked  and 
shaken  to  be  inventive ;  he  could  only  drift  and  stammer 
out  that  the  tale  was  true. 

"So  I  feared,"  said  Theobald,  "and  now,  Ernest,  be 
good  enough  to  ring  the  bell." 

When  the  bell  had  been  answered,  Theobald  desired 
that  John  should  be  sent  for,  and  when  John  came 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         203 

Theobald  calculated  the  wages  due  to  him  and  desired 
him  at  once  to  leave  the  house. 

John's  manner  was  quiet  and  respectful.  He  took  his 
dismissal  as  a  matter  of  course,  for  Theobald  had  hinted 
enough  to  make  him  understand  why  he  was  being  dis- 
charged, but  when  he  saw  Ernest  sitting  pale  and  awe- 
struck on  the  edge  of  his  chair  against  the  dining-room 
wall,  a  sudden  thought  seemed  to  strike  him,  and  turning 
to  Theobald  he  said  in  a  broad  northern  accent  which 
I  will  not  attempt  to  reproduce : 

"Look  here,  master,  I  can  guess  what  all  this  is  about — 
now  before  I  goes  I  want  to  have  a  word  with  you." 

"Ernest,"  said  Theobald,  "leave  the  room." 

"No,  Master  Ernest,  you  shan't,"  said  John,  planting 
himself  against  the  door.  "Now,  master,"  he  continued, 
"you  may  do  as  you  please  about  me.  I've  been  a  good 
servant  to  you,  and  I  don't  mean  to  say  as  you've  been  a 
bad  master  to  me,  but  I  do  say  that  if  you  bear  hardly  on 
Master  Ernest  here  I  have  those  in  the  village  as  '11  hear 
on't  and  let  me  know ;  and  if  I  do  hear  on't  I'll  come  back 
and  break  every  bone  in  your  skin,  so  there !" 

John's  breath  came  and  went  quickly,  as  though  he 
would  have  been  well  enough  pleased  to  begin  the  bone- 
breaking  business  at  once.  Theobald  turned  of  an  ashen 
colour — not,  as  he  explained  afterwards,  at  the  idle 
threats  of  a  detected  and  angry  ruffian,  but  at  such 
atrocious  insolence  from  one  of  his  own  servants. 

"I  shall  leave  Master  Ernest,  John,"  he  rejoined 
proudly,  "to  the  reproaches  of  his  own  conscience." 
("Thank  God  and  thank  John,"  thought  Ernest.)  "As 
for  yourself,  I  admit  that  you  have  been  an  excellent 
servant  until  this  unfortunate  business  came  on,  and  I 
shall  have  much  pleasure  in  giving  you  a  character  if 
you  want  one.  Have  you  anything  more  to  say  ?" 

"No  more  nor  what  I  have  said,"  said  John  sullenly, 
"but  what  I've  said  I  means  and  I'll  stick  to — character 
or  no  character." 


204         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

"Oh,  you  need  not  be  afraid  about  your  character, 
John,"  said  Theobald  kindly,  "and  as  it  is  getting  late, 
there  can  be  no  occasion  for  you  to  leave  the  house 
before  to-morrow  morning." 

To  this  there  was  no  reply  from  John,  who  retired, 
packed  up  his  things,  and  left  the  house  at  once. 

When  Christina  heard  what  had  happened  she  said  she 
could  condone  all  except  that  Theobald  should  have  been 
subjected  to  such  insolence  from  one  of  his  own  servants 
through  the  misconduct  of  his  son.  Theobald  was  the 
bravest  man  in  the  whole  world,  and  could  easily  have 
collared  the  wretch  and  turned  him  out  of  the  room,  but 
how  far  more  dignified,  how  far  nobler  had  been  his 
reply!  How  it  would  tell  in  a  novel  or  upon  the  stage, 
for  though  the  stage  as  a  whole  was  immoral,  yet  there 
were  doubtless  some  plays  which  were  improving  spec- 
tacles. She  could  fancy  the  whole  house  hushed  with 
excitement  at  hearing  John's  menace,  and  hardly  breath- 
ing by  reason  of  their  interest  and  expectation  of  the 
coming  answer.  Then  the  actor — probably  the  great  and 
good  Mr.  Macready — would  say,  "I  shall  leave  Master 
Ernest,  John,  to  the  reproaches  of  his  own  conscience." 
Oh,  it  was  sublime !  What  a  roar  of  applause  must 
follow!  Then  she  should  enter  herself,  and  fling  her 
arms  about  her  husband's  neck,  and  call  him  her  lion- 
hearted  husband.  When  the  curtain  dropped,  it  would 
be  buzzed  about  the  house  that  the  scene  just  witnessed 
had  been  drawn  from  real  life,  and  had  actually  occurred 
in  the  household  of  the  Rev.  Theobald  Pontifex,  who  had 
married  a  Miss  Allaby,  etc.,  etc. 

As  regards  Ernest  the  suspicions  which  had  already 
crossed  her  mind  were  deepened,  but  she  thought  it  better 
to  leave  the  matter  where  it  was.  At  present  she  was  in 
a  very  strong  position.  Ernest's  official  purity  was  firmly 
established,  but  at  the  same  time  he  had  shown  himself  so 
susceptible  that  she  was  able  to  fuse  two  contradictory 
impressions  concerning  him  into  a  single  idea,  and  con- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         205 

sider  him  as  a  kind  of  Joseph  and  Don  Juan  in  one. 
This  was  what  she  had  wanted  all  along,  but  her  vanity 
being  gratified  by  the  possession  of  such  a  son,  there  was 
an  end  of  it;  the  son  himself  was  naught. 

No  doubt  if  John  had  not  interfered,  Ernest  would 
have  had  to  expiate  his  offence  with  ache,  penury  and 
imprisonment.  As  it  was  the  boy  was  "to  consider  him- 
self" as  undergoing  these  punishments,  and  as  suffering 
pangs  of  unavailing  remorse  inflicted  on  him  by  his  con- 
science into  the  bargain ;  but  beyond  the  fact  that  Theo- 
bald kept  him  more  closely  to  his  holiday  task,  and  the 
continued  coldness  of  his  parents,  no  ostensible  punish- 
ment was  meted  out  to  him.  Ernest,  however,  tells  me 
that  he  looks  back  upon  this  as  the  time  when  he  began 
to  know  that  he  had  a  cordial  and  active  dislike  for  both 
his  parents,  which  I  suppose  means  that  he  was  now 
beginning  to  be  aware  that  he  was  reaching  man's  estate. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

ABOUT  a  week  before  he  went  back  to  school  his  father 
again  sent  for  him  into  the  dining-room,  and  told  him 
that  he  should  restore  him  his  watch,  but  that  he  should 
deduct  the  sum  he  had  paid  for  it — for  he  had  thought  it 
better  to  pay  a  few  shillings  rather  than  dispute  the 
ownership  of  the  watch,  seeing  that  Ernest  had  undoubt- 
edly given  it  to  Ellen — from  his  pocket  money,  in  pay- 
ments which  should  extend  over  two  half  years.  He 
would  therefore  have  to  go  back  to  Roughborough  this 
half  year  with  only  five  shillings'  pocket  money.  If  he 
wanted  more  he  must  earn  more  merit  money. 

Ernest  was  not  so  careful  about  money  as  a  pattern 
boy  should  be.  He  did  not  say  to  himself,  "Now  I  have 
got  a  sovereign  which  must  last  me  fifteen  weeks,  there- 
fore I  may  spend  exactly  one  shilling  and  fourpence  in 
each  week" — and  spend  exactly  one  and  fourpence  in 


206         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

each  week  accordingly.  He  ran  through  his  money  at 
about  the  same  rate  as  other  boys  did,  being  pretty  well 
cleaned  out  a  few  days  after  he  had  got  back  to  school. 
When  he  had  no  more  money,  he  got  a  little  into  debt, 
and  when  as  far  in  debt  as  he  could  see  his  way  to  repay- 
ing, he  went  without  luxuries.  Immediately  he  got  any 
money  he  would  pay  his  debts ;  if  there  was  any  over  he 
would  spend  it ;  if  there  was  not — and  there  seldom  was — 
he  would  begin  to  go  on  tick  again. 

His  finance  was  always  based  upon  the  supposition 
that  he  should  go  back  to  school  with  i\  in  his  pocket — 
of  which  he  owed  say  a  matter  of  fifteen  shillings.  There 
would  be  five  shillings  for  sundry  school  subscriptions — 
but  when  these  were  paid  the  weekly  allowance  of  six- 
pence given  to  each  boy  in  hall,  his  merit  money  (which 
this  half  he  was  resolved  should  come  to  a  good  sum) 
and  renewed  credit,  would  carry  him  through  the  half. 

The  sudden  failure  of  I5/ —  was  disastrous  to  my 
hero's  scheme  of  finance.  His  face  betrayed  his  emotions 
so  clearly  that  Theobald  said  he  was  determined  "to  learn 
the  truth  at  once,  and  this  time  without  days  and  days  of 
falsehood"  before  he  reached  it.  The  melancholy  fact 
was  not  long  in  coming  out,  namely,  that  the  wretched 
Ernest  added  debt  to  the  vices  of  idleness,  falsehood  and 
possibly — for  it  was  not  impossible — immorality. 

How  had  he  come  to  get  into  debt?  Did  the  other 
boys  do  so?  Ernest  reluctantly  admitted  that  they  did. 

With  what  shops  did  they  get  into  debt? 

This  was  asking  too  much,  Ernest  said  he  didn't  know  ! 

"Oh,  Ernest,  Ernest,"  exclaimed  his  mother,  who  was 
in  the  room,  "do  not  so  soon  a  second  time  presume  upon 
the  forbearance  of  the  tenderest-hearted  father  in  the 
world.  Give  time  for  one  stab  to  heal  before  you  wound 
him  with  another." 

This  was  all  very  fine,  but  what  was  Ernest  to  do? 
How  could  he  get  the  school  shopkeepers  into  trouble  by 
owning  that  they  let  some  of  the  boys  go  on  tick  with 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         207 

them?  There  was  Mrs.  Cross,  a  good  old  soul,  who 
used  to  sell  hot  rolls  and  butter  for  breakfast,  or  eggs  and 
toast,  or  it  might  be  the  quarter  of  a  fowl  with  bread 
sauce  and  mashed  potatoes  for  which  she  would  charge 
6d.  If  she  made  a  farthing  out  of  the  sixpence  it  was 
as  much  as  she  did.  When  the  boys  would  come  troop- 
ing into  her  shop  after  "the  hounds"  how  often  had  not 
Ernest  heard  her  say  to  her  servant  girls,  "Now  then, 
you  wanches,  git  some  cheers."  All  the  boys  were  fond 
of  her,  and  was  he,  Ernest,  to  tell  tales  about  her?  It 
was  horrible. 

"Now  look  here,  Ernest,"  said  his  father  with  his 
blackest  scowl,  "I  am  going  to  put  a  stop  to  this  nonsense 
once  for  all.  Either  take  me  fully  into  your  confidence, 
as  a  son  should  take  a  father,  and  trust  me  to  deal  with 
this  matter  as  a  clergyman  and  a  man  of  the  world — 
or  understand  distinctly  that  I  shall  take  the  whole  story 
to  Dr.  Skinner,  who,  I  imagine,  will  take  much  sterner 
measures  than  I  should." 

"Oh,  Ernest,  Ernest,"  sobbed  Christina,  "be  wise  in 
time,  and  trust  those  who  have  already  shown  you  that 
they  know  but  too  well  how  to  be  forbearing." 

No  genuine  hero  of  romance  should  have  hesitated  for 
a  moment.  Nothing  should  have  cajoled  or  frightened 
him  into  telling  tales  out  of  school.  Ernest  thought  of 
his  ideal  boys :  they,  he  well  knew,  would  have  let  their 
tongues  be  cut  out  of  them  before  information  could 
have  been  wrung  from  any  word  of  theirs.  But  Ernest 
was  not  an  ideal  boy,  and  he  was  not  strong  enough  for 
his  surroundings ;  I  doubt  how  far  any  boy  could  with- 
stand the  moral  pressure  which  was  brought  to  bear  upon 
him;  at  any  rate  he  could  not  do  so,  and  after  a  little 
more  writhing  he  yielded  himself  a  passive  prey  to  the 
enemy.  He  consoled  himself  with  the  reflection  that  his 
papa  had  not  played  the  confidence  trick  on  him  quite  as 
often  as  his  mamma  had,  and  that  probably  it  was 
better  he  should  tell  his  father,  than  that  his  father 


208         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

should  insist  on  Dr.  Skinner's  making  an  inquiry.  His 
papa's  conscience  "jabbered"  a  good  deal,  but  not  as  much 
as  his  mamma's.  The  little  fool  forgot  that  he  had  not 
given  his  father  as  many  chances  of  betraying  him  as 
he  had  given  to  Christina. 

Then  it  all  came  out.  He  owed  this  at  Mrs.  Cross's, 
and  this  to  Mrs.  Jones,  and  this  at  the  "Swan  and  Bottle" 
public  house,  to  say  nothing  of  another  shilling  or  six- 
pence or  two  in  other  quarters.  Nevertheless,  Theobald 
and  Christina  were  not  satiated,  but  rather  the  more  they 
discovered  the  greater  grew  their  appetite  for  discovery ; 
it  was  their  obvious  duty  to  find  out  everything,  for 
though  they  might  rescue  their  own  darling  from  this 
hotbed  of  iniquity  without  getting  to  know  more  than 
they  knew  at  present,  were  there  not  other  papas  and 
mammas  with  darlings  whom  also  they  were  bound  to 
rescue  if  it  were  yet  possible?  What  boys,  then,  owed 
money  to  these  harpies  as  well  as  Ernest? 

Here,  again,  there  was  a  feeble  show  of  resistance, 
but  the  thumbscrews  were  instantly  applied,  and  Ernest, 
demoralised  as  he  already  was,  recanted  and  submitted 
himself  to  the  powers  that  were.  He  told  only  a  little  less 
than  he  knew  or  thought  he  knew.  He  was  examined, 
re-examined,  cross-examined,  sent  to  the  retirement  of 
his  own  bedroom  and  cross-examined  again ;  the  smoking 
in  Mrs.  Jones'  kitchen  all  came  out;  which  boys  smoked 
and  which  did  not ;  which  boys  owed  money  and,  roughly, 
how  much  and  where;  which  boys  swore  and  used  bad 
language.  Theobald  was  resolved  that  this  time  Ernest 
should,  as  he  called  it,  take  him  into  his  confidence  with- 
out reserve,  so  the  school  list  which  went  with  Dr.  Skin- 
ner's half-yearly  bills  was  brought  out,  and  the  most 
secret  character  of  each  boy  was  gone  through  seriatim 
by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pontifex,  so  far  as  it  was  in  Ernest's 
power  to  give  information  concerning  it,  and  yet  Theo- 
bald had  on  the  preceding  Sunday  preached  a  less  feeble 
sermon  than  he  commonly  preached,  upon  the  horrors  of 


the  Inquisition.  No  matter  how  awful  was  the  depravity 
revealed  to  them,  the  pair  never  flinched,  but  probed  and 
probed,  till  they  were  on  the  point  of  reaching  subjects 
more  delicate  than  they  had  yet  touched  upon.  Here 
Ernest's  unconscious  self  took  the  matter  up  and 
made  a  resistance  to  which  his  conscious  self  was 
unequal,  by  tumbling  him  off  his  chair  in  a  fit  of  faint- 
ing. 

Dr.  Martin  was  sent  for  and  pronounced  the  boy  to  be 
seriously  unwell ;  at  the  same  time  he  prescribed  absolute 
rest  and  absence  from  nervous  excitement.  So  the 
anxious  parents  were  unwillingly  compelled  to  be  content 
with  what  they  had  got  already — being  frightened  into 
leading  him  a  quiet  life  for  the  short  remainder  of  the 
holidays.  They  were  not  idle,  but  Satan  can  find  as  much 
mischief  for  busy  hands  as  for  idle  ones,  so  he  sent  a 
little  job  in  the  direction  of  Battersby  which  Theobald 
and  Christina  undertook  immediately.  It  would  be  a 
pity,  they  reasoned,  that  Ernest  should  leave  Rough- 
borough,  now  that  he  had  been  there  three  years;  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  another  school  for  him,  and  to 
explain  why  he  had  left  Roughborough.  Besides,  Dr. 
Skinner  and  Theobald  were  supposed  to  be  old  friends, 
and  it  would  be  unpleasant  to  offend  him ;  these  were  all 
valid  reasons  for  not  removing  the  boy.  The  proper 
thing  to  do  then,  would  be  to  warn  Dr.  Skinner  confi- 
dentially of  the  state  of  his  school,  and  to  furnish  him 
with  a  school  list  annotated  with  the  remarks  extracted 
from  Ernest,  which  should  be  appended  to  the  name  of 
each  boy. 

Theobald  was  the  perfection  of  neatness ;  while  his 
son  was  ill  upstairs,  he  copied  out  the  school  list  so  that 
he  could  throw  his  comments  into  a  tabular  form,  which 
assumed  the  following  shape — only  that  of  course  I  have 
changed  the  names.  One  cross  in  each  square  was  to 
indicate  occasional  offence;  two  stood  for  frequent,  and 
three  for  habitual  delinquency. 


2io         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


Smoking 

Drinking 
beer  at  the 
"Swan  and 
Bottle." 

Swearing 
and 
Obscene 
Language. 

Notes. 

Smith 

o 

o 

X    X 

Will  smoke 
next  half. 

Brown 

XXX 

o 

X 

Jones 

X 

X   X 

XXX 

Robinson 

X    X 

X   X 

X 

And  thus  through  the  whole  school. 

Of  course,  in  justice  to  Ernest,  Dr.  Skinner  would  be 
bound  over  to  secrecy  before  a  word  was  said  to  him, 
but,  Ernest  being  thus  protected,  he  could  not  be  fur- 
nished with  the  facts  too  completely. 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

So  important  did  Theobald  consider  this  matter  that  he 
made  a  special  journey  to  Roughborough  before  the  half 
year  began.  It  was  a  relief  to  have  him  out  of  the  house, 
but  though  his  destination  was  not  mentioned,  Ernest 
guessed  where  he  had  gone. 

To  this  day  he  considers  his  conduct  at  this  crisis  to 
have  been  one  of  the  most  serious  laches  of  his  life — one 
which  he  can  never  think  of  without  shame  and  indigna- 
tion. He  says  he  ought  to  have  run  away  from  home. 
But  what  good  could  he  have  done  if  he  had  ?  He  would 
have  been  caught,  brought  back  and  examined  two  days 
later  instead  of  two  days  earlier.  A  boy  of  barely  six- 
teen cannot  stand  against  the  moral  pressure  of  a  father 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         211 

and  mother  who  have  always  oppressed  him  any  more 
than  he  can  cope  physically  with  a  powerful  full-grown 
man.  True,  he  may  allow  himself  to  be  killed  rather  than 
yield,  but  this  is  being  so  morbidly  heroic  as  to  come 
close  round  again  to  cowardice;  for  it  is  little  else  than 
suicide,  which  is  universally  condemned  as  cowardly. 

On  the  re-assembling  of  the  school  it  became  apparent 
that  something  had  gone  wrong.  Dr.  Skinner  called  the 
boys  together,  and  with  much  pomp  excommunicated 
Mrs.  Cross  and  Mrs.  Jones,  by  declaring  their  shops  to  be 
out  of  bounds.  The  street  in  which  the  "Swan  and  Bot- 
tle" stood  was  also  forbidden.  The  vices  of  drinking  and 
smoking,  therefore,  were  clearly  aimed  at,  and  before 
prayers  Dr.  Skinner  spoke  a  few  impressive  words  about 
the  abominable  sin  of  using  bad  language.  Ernest's 
feelings  can  be  imagined. 

Next  day  at  the  hour  when  the  daily  punishments  were 
read  out,  though  there  had  not  yet  been  time  for  him  to 
have  offended,  Ernest  Pontifex  was  declared  to  have 
incurred  every  punishment  which  the  school  provided  for 
evil-doers.  He  was  placed  on  the  idle  list  for  the  whole 
half  year,  and  on  perpetual  detentions ;  his  bounds  were 
curtailed ;  he  was  to  attend  Junior  callings-over ;  in  fact 
he  was  so  hemmed  in  with  punishments  upon  every  side 
that  it  was  hardly  possible  for  him  to  go  outside  the 
school  gates.  This  unparalleled  list  of  punishments  in- 
flicted on  the  first  day  of  the  half  year,  and  intended  to 
last  till  the  ensuing  Christmas  holidays,  was  not  con- 
nected with  any  specified  offence.  It  required  no  great 
penetration  therefore,  on  the  part  of  the  boys  to  connect 
Ernest  with  the  putting  Mrs.  Cross's  and  Mrs.  Jones's 
shops  out  of  bounds. 

Great  indeed  was  the  indignation  about  Mrs.  Cross 
who,  it  was  known,  remembered  Dr.  Skinner  himself  as  a 
small  boy  only  just  got  into  jackets,  and  had  doubtless  let 
him  have  many  a  sausage  and  mashed  potatoes  upon 
deferred  payment.  The  head  boys  assembled  in  conclave 


212         The  Way  of  All  FlesH 

to  consider  what  steps  should  be  taken,  but  hardly  had 
they  done  so  before  Ernest  knocked  timidly  at  the  head- 
room door  and  took  the  bull  by  the  horns  by  explaining 
the  facts  as  faY  as  he  could  bring  himself  to  do  so.  He 
made  a  clean  breast  of  everything  except  about  the  school 
list  and  the  remarks  he  had  made  about  each  boy's  charac- 
ter. This  infamy  was  more  than  he  could  own  to,  and 
he  kept  his  counsel  concerning  it.  Fortunately  he  was 
safe  in  doing  so,  for  Dr.  Skinner,  pedant  and  more  than 
pedant  though  he  was,  had  still  just  sense  enough  to  turn 
on  Theobald  in  the  matter  of  the  school  list.  Whether 
he  resented  being  told  that  he  did  not  know  the  charac- 
ters of  his  own  boys,  or  whether  he  dreaded  a  scandal 
about  the  school  I  know  not,  but  when  Theobald  had 
handed  him  the  list,  over  which  he  had  expended  so  much 
pains,  Dr.  Skinner  had  cut  him  uncommonly  short,  and 
had  then  and  there,  with  more  suavity  than  was  usual 
with  him,  committed  it  to  the  flames  before  Theobald's 
own  eyes. 

Ernest  got  off  with  the  head  boys  easier  than  he  ex- 
pected. It  was  admitted  that  the  offence,  heinous  though 
it  was,  had  been  committed  under  extenuating  circum- 
stances; the  frankness  with  which  the  culprit  had  con- 
fessed all,  his  evidently  unfeigned  remorse,  and  the  fury 
with  which  Dr.  Skinner  was  pursuing  him  tended  to 
bring  about  a  reaction  in  his  favour,  as  though  he  had 
been  more  sinned  against  than  sinning. 

As  the  half  year  wore  on  his  spirits  gradually  revived, 
and  when  attacked  by  one  of  his  fits  of  self-abasement 
he  was  in  some  degree  consoled  by  having  found  out  that 
even  his  father  and  mother,  whom  he  had  supposed  so 
immaculate,  were  no  better  than  they  should  be.  About 
the  fifth  of  November  it  was  a  school  custom  to  meet 
on  a  certain  common  not  far  from  Roughborough  and 
burn  somebody  in  effigy,  this  being  the  compromise  ar- 
rived at  in  the  matter  of  fireworks  and  Guy  Fawkes 
festivities.  This  year  it  was  decided  that  Pontifex's 


The  Way  of  All  FlesH         213 

governor  should  be  the  victim,  and  Ernest  though  a  good 
deal  exercised  in  mind  as  to  what  he  ought  to  do,  in  the 
end  saw  no  sufficient  reason  for  holding  aloof  from  pro- 
ceedings which,  as  he  justly  remarked,  could  not  do  his 
father  any  harm. 

It  so  happened  that  the  bishop  had  held  a  confirmation 
at  the  school  on  the  fifth  of  November.  Dr.  Skinner  had 
not  quite  liked  the  selection  of  this  day,  but  the  bishop 
was  pressed  by  many  engagements,  and  had  been  com- 
pelled to  make  the  arrangement  as  it  then  stood.  Ernest 
was  among  those  who  had  to  be  confirmed,  and  was 
deeply  impressed  with  the  solemn  importance  of  the  cere- 
mony. When  he  felt  the  huge  old  bishop  drawing  down 
upon  him  as  he  knelt  in  chapel  he  could  hardly  breathe, 
and  when  the  apparition  paused  before  him  and  laid  its 
hands  upon  his  head  he  was  frightened  almost  out  of  his 
wits.  He  felt  that  he  had  arrived  at  one  of  the  great 
turning  points  of  his  life,  and  that  the  Ernest  of  the 
future  could  resemble  only  very  faintly  the  Ernest  of  the 
past. 

This  happened  at  about  noon,  but  by  the  one  o'clock 
dinner-hour  the  effect  of  the  confirmation  had  worn  off, 
and  he  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  forego  his  annual 
amusement  with  the  bonfire;  so  he  went  with  the  others 
and  was  very  valiant  till  the  image  was  actually  pro- 
duced and  was  about  to  be  burnt;  then  he  felt  a  little 
frightened.  It  was  a  poor  thing  enough,  made  of  paper, 
calico  and  straw,  but  they  had  christened  it  The  Rev. 
Theobald  Pontifex,  and  he  had  a  revulsion  of  feeling  as 
he  saw  it  being  carried  towards  the  bonfire.  Still  he  held 
his  ground,  and  in  a  few  minutes  when  all  was  over  felt 
none  the  worse  for  having  assisted  at  a  ceremony  which, 
after  all,  was  prompted  by  a  boyish  love  of  mischief 
rather  than  by  rancour. 

I  should  say  that  Ernest  had  written  to  his  father,  and 
told  him  of  the  unprecedented  way  in  which  he  was  being 
treated ;  he  even  ventured  to  suggest  that  Theobald  should 


214         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

interfere  for  his  protection  and  reminded  him  how  the 
story  had  been  got  out  of  him,  but  Theobald  had  had 
enough  of  Dr.  Skinner  for  the  present ;  the  burning  of 
the  school  list  had  been  a  rebuff  which  did  not  encourage 
him  to  meddle  a  second  time  in  the  internal  economics  of 
Roughborough.  He  therefore  replied  that  he  must  either1 
remove  Ernest  from  Roughborough  altogether,  which 
would  for  many  reasons  be  undesirable,  or  trust  to  the 
discretion  of  the  head  master  as  regards  the  treatment  he 
might  think  best  for  any  of  his  pupils.  Ernest  said 
no  more;  he  still  felt  that  it  was  so  discreditable 
to  him  to  have  allowed  any  confession  to  be  wrung  from 
him,  that  he  could  not  press  the  promised  amnesty  for 
himself. 

It  was  during  the  "Mother  Cross  row,"  as  it  was  long 
styled  among  the  boys,  that  a  remarkable  phenomenon 
was  witnessed  at  Roughborough.  I  mean  that  of  the  head 
boys  under  certain  conditions  doing  errands  for  their 
juniors.  The  head  boys  had  no  bounds  and  could  go  to 
Mrs.  Cross's  whenever  they  liked;  they  actually,  there- 
fore, made  themselves  go-betweens,  and  would  get  any- 
thing from  either  Mrs.  Cross's  or  Mrs.  Jones's  for  any 
boy,  no  matter  how  low  in  the  school,  between  the  hours 
of  a  quarter  to  nine  and  nine  in  the  morning,  and  a  quar- 
ter to  six  and  six  in  the  afternoon.  By  degrees,  how- 
ever, the  boys  grew  bolder,  and  the  shops,  though  not 
openly  declared  in  bounds  again,  were  tacitly  allowed  to 
be  so. 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

I  MAY  spare  the  reader  more  details  about  my  hero's 
school  days.  He  rose,  always  in  spite  of  himself,  into  the 
Doctor's  form,  and  for  the  last  two  years  or  so  of  his 
time  was  among  the  praepostors,  though  he  never  rose 
into  the  upper  half  of  them.  He  did  little,  and  I  think  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         215 

Doctor  rather  gave  him  up  as  a  boy  whom  he  had  better 
leave  to  himself,  for  he  rarely  made  him  construe,  and 
he  used  to  send  in  his  exercises  or  not,  pretty  much  as 
he  liked.  His  tacit,  unconscious  obstinacy  had  in  time 
effected  more  even  than  a  few  bold  sallies  in  the  first 
instance  would  have  done.  To  the  end  of  his  career  his 
position  inter  pares  was  what  it  had  been  at  the  begin- 
ning, namely,  among  the  upper  part  of  the  less  reputable 
class — whether  of  seniors  or  juniors — rather  than  among 
the  lower  part  of  the  more  respectable. 

Only  once  in  the  whole  course  of  his  school  life  did 
he  get  praise  from  Dr.  Skinner  for  any  exercise,  and  this 
he  has  treasured  as  the  best  example  of  guarded  approval 
which  he  has  ever  seen.  He  had  had  to  write  a  copy  of 
Alcaics  on  "The  dogs  of  the  monks  of  St.  Bernard,"  and 
when  the  exercise  was  returned  to  him  he  found  the 
Doctor  had  written  on  it:  "In  this  copy  of  Alcaics — 
which  is  still  excessively  bad — I  fancy  that  I  can  discern 
some  faint  symptoms  of  improvement."  Ernest  says  that 
if  the  exercise  was  any  better  than  usual  it  must  have 
been  by  a  fluke,  for  he  is  sure  that  he  always  liked  dogs, 
especially  St.  Bernard  dogs,  far  too  much  to  take  any 
pleasure  in  writing  Alcaics  about  them. 

"As  I  look  back  upon  it,"  he  said  to  me  but  the  other 
day,  with  a  hearty  laugh,  "I  respect  myself  more  for  hav- 
ing never  once  got  the  best  mark  for  an  exercise  than  I 
should  do  if  I  had  got  it  every  time  it  could  be  got.  I  am 
glad  nothing  could  make  me  do  Latin  and  Greek  verses ; 
I  am  glad  Skinner  could  never  get  any  moral  influence 
over  me;  I  am  glad  I  was  idle  at  school,  and  I  am  glad 
my  father  overtasked  me  as  a  boy — otherwise,  likely 
enough  I  should  have  acquiesced  in  the  swindle,  and 
might  have  written  as  good  a  copy  of  Alcaics  about  the 
dogs  of  the  monks  of  St.  Bernard  as  my  neighbours,  and 
yet  I  don't  know,  for  I  remember  there  was  another  boy, 
who  sent  in  a  Latin  copy  of  some  sort,  but  for  his  own 
pleasure  he  wrote  the  following — 


The  dogs  of  the  monks  of  St.  Bernard  go 
To  pick  little  children  out  of  the  snow, 
And  around  their  necks  is  the  cordial  gin 
Tied  with  a  little  bit  of  bob-bin. 

I  should  like  to  have  written  that,  and  I  did  try,  but  I 
couldn't.  I  didn't  quite  like  the  last  line,  and  tried  to 
mend  it,  but  I  couldn't." 

I  fancied  I  could  see  traces  of  bitterness  against  the 
instructors  of  his  youth  in  Ernest's  manner,  and  said 
something  to  this  effect. 

"Oh,  no,"  he  replied,  still  laughing,  "no  more  than 
St.  Anthony  felt  towards  the  devils  who  had  tempted  him, 
when  he  met  some  of  them  casually  a  hundred  or  a  couple 
of  hundred  years  afterwards.  Of  course  he  knew  they 
were  devils,  but  that  was  all  right  enough ;  there  must  be 
devils.  St.  Anthony  probably  liked  these  devils  better 
than  most  others,  and  for  old  acquaintance  sake  showed 
them  as  much  indulgence  as  was  compatible  with 
decorum. 

"Besides,  you  know,"  he  added,  "St.  Anthony  tempted 
the  devils  quite  as  much  as  they  tempted  him;  for  his 
peculiar  sanctity  was  a  greater  temptation  to  tempt  him 
than  they  could  stand.  Strictly  speaking,  it  was  the 
devils  who  were  the  more  to  be  pitied,  for  they  were 
led  up 'by  St.  Anthony  to  be  tempted  and  fell,  whereas 
St.  Anthony  did  not  fall.  I  believe  I  was  a  disagreeable 
and  unintelligible  boy,  and  if  ever  I  meet  Skinner  there 
is  no  one  whom  I  would  shake  hands  with,  or  do  a  good 
turn  to  more  readily." 

At  home  things  went  on  rather  better;  the  Ellen  and 
Mother  Cross  rows  sank  slowly  down  upon  the  horizon, 
and  even  at  home  he  had  quieter  times  now  that  he 
had  become  a  praepostor.  Nevertheless  the  watchful  eye 
and  protecting  hand  were  still  ever  over  him  to  guard  his 
comings  in  and  his  goings  out,  and  to  spy  out  all  his  ways. 
Is  it  wonderful  that  the  boy,  though  always  trying  to 
keep  up  appearances  as  though  he  were  cheerful  and 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         217 

contented — and  at  times  actually  being  so — wore  often 
an  anxious,  jaded  look  when  he  thought  none  were  look- 
ing, which  told  of  an  almost  incessant  conflict  within? 

Doubtless  Theobald  saw  these  looks  and  knew  how  to 
interpret  them,  but  it  was  his  profession  to  know  how  to 
shut  his  eyes  to  things  that  were  inconvenient — no  clergy- 
man could  keep  his  benefice  for  a  month  if  he  could  not 
do  this ;  besides  he  had  allowed  himself  for  so  many  years 
to  say  things  he  ought  not  to  have  said,  and  not  to  say  the 
things  he  ought  to  have  said,  that  he  was  little  likely  to 
see  anythihg  that  he  thought  it  more  convenient  not  to  see 
unless  he  was  made  to  do  so. 

It  was  not  much  that  was  wanted.  To  make  no  mys- 
teries where  Nature  has  made  none,  to  bring  his  con- 
science under  something  like  reasonable  control,  to  give 
Ernest  his  head  a  little  more,  to  ask  fewer  questions, 
and  to  give  him  pocket  money  with  a  desire  that  it  should 
be  spent  upon  menus  plaisirs.  .  .  . 

"Call  that  not  much  indeed,"  laughed  Ernest,  as  I  read 
him  what  I  have  just  written.  "Why  it  is  the  whole  duty 
of  a  father,  but  it  is  the  mystery-making  which  is  the 
worst  evil.  If  people  would  dare  to  speak  to  one  another 
unreservedly,  there  would  be  a  good  deal  less  sorrow  in 
the  world  a  hundred  years  hence." 

To  return,  however,  to  Roughborough.  On  the  day  of 
his  leaving,  when  he  was  sent  for  into  the  library  to  be 
shaken  hands  with,  he  was  surprised  to  feel  that,  though 
assuredly  glad  to  leave,  he  did  not  do  so  with  any  especial 
grudge  against  the  Doctor  rankling  in  his  breast.  He  had 
come  to  the  end  of  it  all,  and  was  still  alive,  nor,  take  it 
all  round,  more  seriously  amiss  than  other  people.  Dr. 
Skinner  received  him  graciously,  and  was  even  frolicsome 
after  his  own  heavy  fashion.  Young  people  are  almost 
always  placable,  and  Ernest  felt  as  he  went  away  that 
another  such  interview  would  not  only  have  wiped  off 
all  old  scores,  but  have  brought  him  round  into  the  ranks 
of  the  Doctor's  admirers  and  supporters — among  whom  it 


218         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

is  only  fair  to  say  that  the  greater  number  of  the  more 
promising  boys  were  found. 

Just  before  saying  good-bye  the  Doctor  actually  took 
down  a  volume  from  those  shelves  which  had  seemed  so 
awful  six  years  previously,  and  gave  it  to  him  after 
having  written  his  name  in  it,  and  the  words  <£i\t'as  KOI 
ewot'as  x^Plvf  which  I  believe  means  "with  all  kind  wishes 
from  the  donor."  The  book  was  one  written  in  Latin 
by  a  German — Schomann :  "De  comitiis  Atheniensibus" 
— not  exactly  light  and  cheerful  reading,  but  Ernest  felt 
it  was  high  time  he  got  to  understand  the  Athenian  con- 
stitution and  manner  of  voting;  he  had  got  them  up  a 
great  many  times  already,  but  had  forgotten  them  as  fast 
as  he  had  learned  them;  now,  however,  that  the  Doctor 
had  given  him  this  book,  he  would  master  the  subject 
once  for  all.  How  strange  it  was !  He  wanted  to  remem- 
ber these  things  very  badly ;  he  knew  he  did,  but  he  could 
never  retain  them;  in  spite  of  himself  they  no  sooner  fell 
upon  his  mind  than  they  fell  off  it  again,  he  had  such  a 
dreadful  memory ;  whereas,  if  anyone  played  him  a  piece 
of  music  and  told  him  where  it  came  from,  he  never 
forgot  that,  though  he  made  no  effort  to  retain  it,  and 
was  not  even  conscious  of  trying  to  remember  it  at  all. 
His  mind  must  be  badly  formed  and  he  was  no  good. 

Having  still  a  short  time  to  spare,  he  got  the  keys  of 
St.  Michael's  church  and  went  to  have  a  farewell  prac- 
tice upon  the  organ,  which  he  could  now  play  fairly  well. 
He  walked  up  and  down  the  aisle  for  a  while  in  a  medi- 
tative mood,  and  then,  settling  down  to  the  organ,  played 
"They  loathed  to  drink  of  the  river"  about  six  times  over, 
after  which  he  felt  more  composed  and  happier;  then, 
tearing  himself  away  from  the  instrument  he  loved  so 
well,  he  hurried  to  the  station. 

As  the  train  drew  out  he  looked  down  from  a  high 
embankment  on  to  the  little  house  his  aunt  had  taken, 
and  where  it  might  be  said  she  had  died  through  her 
desire  to  do  him  a  kindness.  There  were  the  two  well- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         219 

known  bow  windows,  out  of  which  he  had  often  stepped 
to  run  across  the  lawn  into  the  workshop.  He  reproached 
himself  with  the  little  gratitude  he  had  shown  towards 
this  kind  lady — the  only  one  of  his  relations  whom  he  had 
ever  felt  as  though  he  could  have  taken  into  his  confi- 
dence. Dearly  as  he  loved  her  memory,  he  was  glad  she 
had  not  known  the  scrapes  he  had  got  into  since  she 
died;  perhaps  she  might  not  have  forgiven  them — and 
how  awful  that  would  have  been !  But  then,  if  she  had 
lived,  perhaps  many  of  his  ills  would  have  been  spared 
him.  As  he  mused  thus  he  grew  sad  again.  Where, 
where,  he  asked  himself,  was  it  all  to  end  ?  Was  it  to  be 
always  sin,  shame  and  sorrow  in  the  future,  as  it  had 
been  in  the  past,  and  the  ever-watchful  eye  and  protecting 
hand  of  his  father  laying  burdens  on  him  greater  than  he 
could  bear — or  was  he,  too,  some  day  or  another  to  come 
to  feel  that  he  was  fairly  well  and  happy? 

There  was  a  gray  mist  across  the  sun,  so  that  the  eye 
could  bear  its  light,  and  Ernest,  while  musing  as  above, 
was  looking  right  into  the  middle  of  the  sun  himself, 
as  into  the  face  of  one  whom  he  knew  and  was  fond  of. 
At  first  his  face  was  grave,  but  kindly,  as  of  a  tired  man 
who  feels  that  a  long  task  is  over;  but  in  a  few  seconds 
the  more  humorous  side  of  his  misfortunes  presented 
itself  to  him,  and  he  smiled  half  reproachfully,  half 
merrily,  as  thinking  how  little  all  that  had  happened  to 
him  really  mattered,  and  how  small  were  his  hardships  as 
compared  with  those  of  most  people.  Still  looking  into 
the  eye  of  the  sun  and  smiling  dreamily,  he  thought  how 
he  had  helped  to  burn  his  father  in  effigy,  and  his  look 
grew  merrier,  till  at  last  he  broke  out  into  a  laugh. 
Exactly  at  this  moment  the  light  veil  of  cloud  parted  from 
the  sun,  and  he  was  brought  to  terra  firma  by  the  break- 
ing forth  of  the  sunshine.  On  this  he  became  aware 
that  he  was  being  watched  attentively  by  a  fellow- 
traveller  opposite  to  him,  an  elderly  gentleman  with  a 
large  head  and  iron-grey  hair. 


220         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

"My  young  friend,"  said  he,  good-naturedly,  "you 
really  must  not  carry  on  conversations  with  people  in  the 
sun,  while  you  are  in  a  public  railway  carriage." 

The  old  gentleman  said  not  another  word,  but  unfolded 
his  Times  and  began  to  read  it.  As  for  Ernest,  he  blushed 
crimson.  The  pair  did  not  speak  during  the  rest  of  the 
time  they  were  in  the  carriage,  but  they  eyed  each  other 
from  time  to  time,  so  that  the  face  of  each  was  impressed 
on  the  recollection  of  the  other. 


CHAPTER  XLV 

SOME  people  say  that  their  school  days  were  the  happiest 
of  their  lives.  They  may  be  right,  but  I  always  look  with 
suspicion  upon  those  whom  I  hear  saying  this.  It  is  hard 
enough  to  know  whether  one  is  happy  or  unhappy  now, 
and  still  harder  to  compare  the  relative  happiness  or 
unhappiness  of  different  times  of  one's  life;  the  utmost 
that  can  be  said  is  that  we  are  fairly  happy  so  long  as 
we  are  not  distinctly  aware  of  being  miserable.  As  I 
was  talking  with  Ernest  one  day  not  so  long  since  about 
this,  he  said  he  was  so  happy  now  that  he  was  sure  he 
had  never  been  happier,  and  did  not  wish  to  be  so,  but 
that  Cambridge  was  the  first  place  where  he  had  ever 
been  consciously  and  continuously  happy. 

How  can  any  boy  fail  to  feel  an  ecstasy  of  pleasure  on 
first  finding  himself  in  rooms  which  he  knows  for  the 
next  few  years  are  to  be  his  castle  ?  Here  he  will  not  be 
compelled  to  turn  out  of  the  most  comfortable  place  as 
soon  as  he  has  ensconced  himself  in  it  because  papa  or 
mamma  happens  to  come  into  the  room,  and  he  should 
give  it  up  to  them.  The  most  cosy  chair  here  is  for  him- 
self, there  is  no  one  even  to  share  the  room  with  him,  or 
to  interfere  with  his  doing  as  he  likes  in  it — smoking 
included.  Why,  if  such  a  room  looked  out  both  back  and 
front  on  to  a  blank  dead  wall  it  would  still  be  a  paradise ; 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         221 

how  much  more  then  when  the  view  is  of  some  quiet 
grassy  court  or  cloister  or  garden,  as  from  the  windows 
of  the  greater  number  of  rooms  at  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge. 

Theobald,  as  an  old  fellow  and  tutor  of  Emmanuel — at 
which  college  he  had  entered  Ernest — was  able  to  obtain 
from  the  present  tutor  a  certain  preference  in  the  choice 
of  rooms;  Ernest's,  therefore,  were  very  pleasant  ones, 
looking  out  upon  the  grassy  court  that  is  bounded  by 
the  Fellows'  gardens. 

Theobald  accompanied  him  to  Cambridge,  and  was  at 
his  best  while  doing  so.  He  liked  the  jaunt,  and  even 
he  was  not  without  a  certain  feeling  of  pride  in  having 
a  full-blown  son  at  the  University.  Some  of  the  reflected 
rays  of  this  splendour  were  allowed  to  fall  upon  Ernest 
himself.  Theobald  said  he  was  "willing  to  hope" — this 
was  one  of  his  tags — that  his  son  would  turn  over  a  new 
leaf  now  that  he  had  left  school,  and  for  his  own  part  he 
was  "only  too  ready" — this  was  another  tag — to  let  by- 
gones be  bygones. 

Ernest,  not  yet  having  his  name  on  the  books,  was  able 
to  dine  with  his  father  at  the  Fellows'  table  of  one  of  the 
other  colleges  on  the  invitation  of  an  old  friend  of  Theo- 
bald's ;  he  there  made  acquaintance  with  sundry  of  the 
good  things  of  this  life,  the  very  names  of  which  were 
new  to  him,  and  felt  as  he  ate  them  that  he  was  now 
indeed  receiving  a  liberal  education.  When  at  length  the 
time  came  for  him  to  go  to  Emmanuel,  where  he  was  to 
sleep  in  his  new  rooms,  his  father  came  with  him  to  the 
gates  and  saw  him  safe  into  college ;  a  few  minutes  more 
and  he  found  himself  alone  in  a  room  for  which  he  had  a 
latch-key. 

From  this  time  he  dated  many  days  which,  if  not  quite 
unclouded,  were  upon  the  whole  very  happy  ones.  I  need 
not,  however,  describe  them,  as  the  life  of  a  quiet,  steady- 
going  undergraduate  has  been  told  in  a  score  of  novels 
better  than  I  can  tell  it.  Some  of  Ernest's  schoolfellows 


222         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

came  up  to  Cambridge  at  the  same  time  as  himself,  and 
with  these  he  continued  on  friendly  terms  during  the 
whole  of  his  college  career.  Other  schoolfellows  were 
only  a*  year  or  two  his  seniors ;  these  called  on  him,  and 
he  thus  made  a  sufficiently  favourable  entree  into  college 
life.  A  straightforwardness  of  character  that  was 
stamped  upon  his  face,  a  love  of  humour,  and  a  temper 
which  was  more  easily  appeased  than  ruffled  made  up  for 
some  awkwardness  and  want  of  savoir  faire.  He  soon 
became  a  not  unpopular  member  of  the  best  set  of  his 
year,  and  though  neither  capable  of  becoming,  nor  aspir- 
ing to  become,  a  leader,  was  admitted  by  the  leaders  as 
among  their  nearer  hangers-on. 

Of  ambition  he  had  at  that  time  not  one  particle ;  great- 
ness, or  indeed  superiority  of  any  kind,  seemed  so  far  off 
and  incomprehensible  to  him  that  the  idea  of  connecting 
it  with  himself  never  crossed  his  mind.  If  he  could 
escape  the  notice  of  all  those  with  whom  he  did  not  feel 
himself  en  rapport,  he  conceived  that  he  had  triumphed 
sufficiently.  He  did  not  care  about  taking  a  good  degree, 
except  that  it  must  be  good  enough  to  keep  his  father  and 
mother  quiet.  He  did  not  dream  of  being  able  to  get  a 
fellowship ;  if  he  had,  he  would  have  tried  hard  to  do  so, 
for  he  became  so  fond  of  Cambridge  that  he  could  not 
bear  the  thought  of  having  to  leave  it ;  the  briefness  in- 
deed of  the  season  during  which  his  present  happiness 
was  to  last  was  almost  the  only  thing  that  now  seriously 
troubled  him. 

Having  less  to  attend  to  in  the  matter  of  growing,  and 
having  got  his  head  more  free,  he  took  to  reading  fairly 
well — not  because  he  liked  it,  but  because  he  was  told  he 
ought  to  do  so,  and  his  natural  instinct,  like  that  of  all 
very  young  men  who  are  good  for  anything,  was  to  do 
as  those  in  authority  told  him.  The  intention  at  Bat- 
tersby  was  (for  Dr.  Skinner  had  said  that  Ernest  could 
never  get  a  fellowship)  that  he  should  take  a  sufficiently 
good  degree  to  be  able  to  get  a  tutorship  or  mastership 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         223 

in  some  school  preparatory  to  taking  orders.  When  he 
was  twenty-one  years  old  his  money  was  to  come  into  his 
own  hands,  and  the  best  thing  he  could  do  with  it  would 
be  to  buy  the  next  presentation  to  a  living,  the  rector  of 
which  was  now  old,  and  live  on  his  mastership  or  tutor- 
ship till  the  living  fell  in.  He  could  buy  a  very  good 
living  for  the  sum  which  his  grandfather's  legacy  now 
amounted  to,  for  Theobald  had  never  had  any  serious 
intention  of  making  deductions  for  his  son's  maintenance 
and  education,  and  the  money  had  accumulated  till  it  was 
now  about  five  thousand  pounds;  he  had  only  talked 
about  making  deductions  in  order  to  stimulate  the  boy  to 
exertion  as  far  as  possible,  by  making  him  think  that  this 
was  his  only  chance  of  escaping  starvation — or  perhaps 
from  pure  love  of  teasing. 

When  Ernest  had  a  living  of  £600  or  £700  a  year  with 
a  house,  and  not  too  many  parishioners — why,  he  might 
add  to  his  income  by  taking  pupils,  or  even  keeping  a 
school,  and  then,  say  at  thirty,  he  might  marry.  It  was 
not  easy  for  Theobald  to  hit  on  any  much  more  sensible 
plan.  He  could  not  get  Ernest  into  business,  for  he  had 
no  business  connections — besides  he  did  not  know  what 
business  meant;  he  had  no  interest,  again,  at  the  Bar; 
medicine  was  a  profession  which  subjected  its  students  to 
ordeals  and  temptations  which  these  fond  parents  shrank 
from  on  behalf  of  their  boy ;  he  would  be  thrown  among 
companions  and  familiarised  with  details  which  might 
sully  him,  and  though  he  might  stand,  it  was  "only  too 
possible"  that  he  would  fall.  Besides,  ordination  was  the 
road  which  Theobald  knew  and  understood,  and  indeed 
the  only  road  about  which  he  knew  anything  at  all,  so  not 
unnaturally  it  was  the  one  he  chose  for  Ernest. 

The  foregoing  had  been  instilled  into  my  hero  from 
earliest  boyhood,  much  as  it  had  been  instilled  into  Theo- 
bald himself,  and  with  the  same  result- — the  conviction, 
namely,  that  he  was  certainly  to  be  a  clergyman,  but 
that  it  was  a  long  way  off  yet,  and  he  supposed  it  was  all 


224         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

right.  As  for  the  duty  of  reading  hard,  and  taking  as 
good  a  degree  as  he  could,  this  was  plain  enough,  so  he 
set  himself  to  work,  as  I  have  said,  steadily,  and  to  the 
surprise  of  everyone  as  well  as  himself  got  a  college 
scholarship,  of  no  great  value,  but  still  a  scholarship,  in 
his  freshman's  term.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
Theobald  stuck  to  the  whole  of  this  money,  believing  the 
pocket-money  he  allowed  Ernest  to  be  sufficient  for  him, 
and  knowing  how  dangerous  it  was  for  young  men  to 
have  money  at  command.  I  do  not  suppose  it  even 
occurred  to  him  to  try  and  remember  what  he  had  felt 
when  his  father  took  a  like  course  in  regard  to  him- 
self. 

Ernest's  position  in  this  respect  was  much  what  it  had 
been  at  school  except  that  things  were  on  a  larger  scale. 
His  tutor's  and  cook's  bills  were  paid  for  him ;  his  father 
sent  him  his  wine ;  over  and  above  this  he  had  £50  a  year 
with  which  to  keep  himself  in  clothes  and  all  other 
expenses ;  this  was  about  the  usual  thing  at  Emmanuel  in 
Ernest's  day,  though  many  had  much  less  than  .this. 
Ernest  did  as  he  had  done  at  school — he  spent  what  he 
could,  soon  after  he  received  his  money ;  he  then  incurred 
a  few  modest  liabilities,  and  then  lived  penuriously  till 
next  term,  when  he  would  immediately  pay  his  debts,  and 
start  new  ones  to  much  the  same  extent  as  those  which 
he  had  just  got  rid  of.  When  he  came  into  his  £5000  and 
became  independent  of  his  father,  i  15  or  £20  served  to 
cover  the  whole  of  his  unauthorised  expenditure. 

He  joined  the  boat  club,  and  was  constant  in  his  attend- 
ance at  the  boats.  He  still  smoked,  but  never  took  more 
wine  or  beer  than  was  good  for  him,  except  perhaps  on 
the  occasion  of  a  boating  supper,  but  even  then  he  found 
the  consequences  unpleasant,  and  soon  learned  how  to 
keep  within  safe  limits.  He  attended  chapel  as  often  as 
he  was  compelled  to  do  so ;  he  communicated  two  or  three 
times  a  year,  because  his  tutor  told  him  he  ought  to ;  in 
fact  he  set  himself  to  live  soberly  and  cleanly,  as  I  imag- 


r 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         225 

ine  all  his  instincts  prompted  him  to  do,  and  when  he 
fell — as  who  that  is  born  of  woman  can  help  sometimes 
doing  ? — it  was  not  till  after  a  sharp  tussle  with  a  tempta- 
tion that  was  more  than  his  flesh  and  blood  could  stand ; 
then  he  was  very  penitent  and  would  go  a  fairly  long 
while  without  sinning  again ;  and  this  was  how  it  had 
always  been  with  him  since  he  had  arrived  at  years  of 
indiscretion. 

Even  to  the  end  of  his  career  at  Cambridge  he  was  not 
aware  that  he  had  it  in  him  to  do  anything,  but  others 
had  begun  to  see  that  he  was  not  wanting  in  ability  and 
sometimes  told  him  so.  He  did  not  believe  it;  indeed 
he  knew  very  well  that  if  they  thought  him  clever  they 
were  being  taken  in,  but  it  pleased  him  to  have  been  able 
to  take  them  in,  and  he  tried  to  do  so  still  further ;  he  was 
therefore  a  good  deal  on  the  lookout  for  cants  that  he 
could  catch  and  apply  in  season,  and  might  have  done 
himself  some  mischief  thus  if  he  had  not  been  ready  to 
throw  over  any  cant  as  soon  as  he  had  come  across  an- 
other more  nearly  to  his  fancy;  his  friends  used  to  say 
that  when  he  rose  he  flew  like  a  snipe,  darting  several 
times  in  various  directions  before  he  settled  down  to  a 
steady,  straight  flight,  but  when  he  had  once  got  into  this 
he  would  keep  to  it. 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

WHEN  he  was  in  his  third  year  a  magazine  was  founded 
at  Cambridge,  the  contributions  to  which  were  exclusively 
by  undergraduates.  Ernest  sent  in  an  essay  upon  the 
Greek  Drama,  which  he  has  declined  to  let  me  reproduce 
here  without  his  being  allowed  to  re-edit  it.  I  have 
therefore  been  unable  to  give  it  in  its  original  form,  but 
when  pruned  of  its  redundancies  (and  this  is  all  that  has 
been  done  to  it)  it  runs  as  follows — 


226         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

"I  shall  not  attempt  within  the  limits  at  my  disposal 
to  make  a  resume  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  Greek 
drama,  but  will  confine  myself  to  considering  whether  the 
reputation  enjoyed  by  the  three  chief  Greek  tragedians, 
./Eschylus,  Sophocles  and  Euripides,  is  one  that  will  be 
permanent,  or  whether  they  will  one  day  be  held  to  have 
been  overrated. 

"Why,  I  ask  myself,  do  I  see  much  that  I  can  easily 
admire  in  Homer,  Thucydides,  Herodotus,  Demosthenes, 
Aristophanes,  Theocritus,  parts  of  Lucretius,  Horace's 
satires  and  epistles,  to  say  nothing  of  other  ancient  writ- 
ers, and  yet  find  myself  at  once  repelled  by  even  those 
works  of  yEschylus,  Sophocles  and  Euripides  which  are 
most  generally  admired. 

"With  the  first-named  writers  I  am  in  the  hands  of 
men  who  feel,  if  not  as  I  do,  still  as  I  can  understand 
their  feeling,  and  as  I  am  interested  to  see  that  they 
should  have  felt;  with  the  second  I  have  so  little  sym- 
pathy that  I  cannot  understand  how  anyone  can  ever 
have  taken  any  interest  in  them  whatever.  Their  highest 
flights  to  me  are  dull,  pompous  and  artificial  productions, 
which,  if  they  were  to  appear  now  for  the  first  time, 
would,  I  should  think,  either  fall  dead  or  be  severely 
handled  by  the  critics.  I  wish  to  know  whether  it  is  I 
who  am  in  fault  in  this  matter,  or  whether  part  of  the 
blame  may  not  rest  with  the  tragedians  themselves. 

"How  far,  I  wonder,  did  the  Athenians  genuinely  like 
these  poets,  and  how  far  was  the  applause  which  was 
lavished  upon  them  due  to  fashion  or  affectation?  How 
far,  in  fact,  did  admiration  for  the  orthodox  tragedians 
take  that  place  among  the  Athenians  which  going  to 
church  does  among  ourselves  ? 

"This  is  a  venturesome  question  considering  the  ver- 
dict now  generally  given  for  over  two  thousand  years, 
nor  should  I  have  permitted  myself  to  ask  it  if  it  had  not 
been  suggested  to  me  by  one  whose  reputation  stands 
as  high,  and  has  been  sanctioned  for  as  long  time  as 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         227 

those  of  the  tragedians  themselves,  I  mean  by  Aris- 
tophanes. 

"Numbers,  weight  of  authority,  and  time,  have  con- 
spired to  place  Aristophanes  on  as  high  a  literary  pinnacle 
as  any  ancient  writer,  with  the  exception  perhaps  of 
Homer,  but  he  makes  no  secret  of  heartily  hating  Eurip- 
ides and  Sophocles,  and  I  strongly  suspect  only  praises 
^Eschylus  that  he  may  run  down  the  other  two  with 
greater  impunity.  For  after  all  there  is  no  such  differ- 
ence between  yEschylus  and  his  successors  as  will  render 
the  former  very  good  and  the  latter  very  bad;  and  the 
thrusts  at  ^Eschylus  which  Aristophanes  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Euripides  go  home  too  well  to  have  been  written 
by  an  admirer. 

"It  may  be  observed  that  while  Euripides  accuses 
^Eschylus  of  being  'pomp-bundle-worded,'  which  I  sup- 
pose means  bombastic  and  given  to  rodomontade,  yEschy- 
lus  retorts  on  Euripides  that  he  is  a  'gossip  gleaner,  a 
describer  of  beggars,  and  a  rag-stitcher,'  from  which  it 
may  be  inferred  that  he  was  truer  to  the  life  of  his  own 
times  than  ./Eschylus  was.  It  happens,  however,  that  a 
faithful  rendering  of  contemporary  life  is  the  very  quality 
which  gives  its  most  permanent  interest  to  any  work  of 
fiction,  whether  in  literature  or  painting,  and  it  is  a  not 
unnatural  consequence  that  while  only  seven  plays  by 
Eschylus,  and  the  same  number  by  Sophocles,  have  come 
down  to  us,  we  have  no  fewer  than  nineteen  by  Euripides. 

"This,  however,  is  a  digression ;  the  question  before  us 
is  whether  Aristophanes  really  liked  Eschylus  or  only 
pretended  to  do  so.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the 
claims  of  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles  and  Euripides,  to  the  fore- 
most place  amongst  tragedians  were  held  to  be  as  in- 
controvertible as  those  of  Dante,  Petrarch,  Tasso  and 
Ariosto  to  be  the  greatest  of  Italian  poets,  are  held  among 
the  Italians  of  to-day.  If  we  can  fancy  some  witty, 
genial  writer,  we  will  say  in  Florence,  finding  himself 
bored  by  all  the  poets  I  have  named,  we  can  yet  believe 


he  would  be  unwilling  to  admit  that  he  disliked  them 
without  exception.  He  would  prefer  to  think  he  could 
see  something  at  any  rate  in  Dante,  whom  he  could 
idealise  more  easily,  inasmuch  as  he  was  more  remote; 
in  order  to  carry  his  countrymen  the  farther  with  him, 
he  would  endeavour  to  meet  them  more  than  was  con- 
sistent with  his  own  instincts.  Without  some  such  pallia- 
tion as  admiration  for  one,  at  any  rate,  of  the  tragedians, 
it  would  be  almost  as  dangerous  for  Aristophanes  to 
attack  them  as  it  would  be  for  an  Englishman  now  to 
say  that  he  did  not  think  very  much  of  the  Elizabethan 
dramatists.  Yet  which  of  us  in  his  heart  likes  any  of 
the  Elizabethan  dramatists  except  Shakespeare?  Are 
they  in  reality  anything  else  than  literary  Struldbrugs  ? 

"I  conclude  upon  the  whole  that  Aristophanes  did  not 
like  any  of  the  tragedians ;  yet  no  one  will  deny  that  this 
keen,  witty,  outspoken  writer  was  as  good  a  judge  of 
literary  value,  and  as  able  to  see  any  beauties  that  the 
tragic  dramas  contained  as  nine-tenths,  at  any  rate,  of 
ourselves.  He  had,  moreover,  the  advantage  of  thor- 
oughly understanding  the  standpoint  from  which  the 
tragedians  expected  their  work  to  be  judged,  and  what 
was  his  conclusion?  Briefly  it  was  little  else  than  this, 
that  they  were  a  fraud  or  something  very  like  it.  For 
my  own  part  I  cordially  agree  with  him.  I  am  free  to 
confess  that  with  the  exception  perhaps  of  some  of  the 
Psalms  of  David  I  know  no  writings  which  seem  so  little 
to  deserve  their  reputation.  I  do  not  know  that  I  should 
particularly  mind  my  sisters  reading  them,  but  I  will 
take  good  care  never  to  read  them  myself." 

This  last  bit  about  the  Psalms  was  awful,  and  there 
was  a  great  fight  with  the  editor  as  to  whether  or  no  it 
should  be  allowed  to  stand.  Ernest  himself  was  fright- 
ened at  it,  but  he  had  once  heard  someone  say  that  the 
Psalms  were  many  of  them  very  poor,  and  on  looking  at 
them  more  closely,  after  he  had  been  told  this,  he  found 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         229 

that  there  could  hardly  be  two  opinions  on  the  subject. 
So  he  caught  up  the  remark  and  reproduced  it  as  his 
own,  concluding  that  these  psalms  had  probably  never 
been  written  by  David  at  all,  but  had  got  in  among  the 
others  by  mistake. 

The  essay,  perhaps  on  account  of  the  passage  about  the 
Psalms,  created  quite  a  sensation,  and  on  the  whole  was 
well  received.  Ernest's  friends  praised  it  more  highly 
than  it  deserved,  and  he  was  himself  very  proud  of  it,  but 
he  dared  not  show  it  at  Battersby.  He  knew  also  that 
he  was  now  at  the  end  of  his  tether;  this  was  his  one 
idea  (I  feel  sure  he  had  caught  more  than  half  of  it  from 
other  people),  and  now  he  had  not  another  thing  left 
to  write  about.  He  found  himself  cursed  with  a  small 
reputation  which  seemed  to  him  much  bigger  than  it  was, 
and  a  consciousness  that  he  could  never  keep  it  up.  Be- 
fore many  days  were  over  he  felt  his  unfortunate  essay 
to  be  a  white  elephant  to  him,  which  he  must  feed  by 
hurrying  into  all  sorts  of  frantic  attempts  to  cap  his 
triumph,  and,  as  may  be  imagined,  these  attempts  were 
failures. 

He  did  not  understand  that  if  he  waited  and  listened 
and  observed,  another  idea  of  some  kind  would  probably 
occur  to  him  some  day,  and  that  the  development  of  this 
would  in  its  turn  suggest  still  further  ones.  He  did  not 
yet  know  that  the  very  worst  way  of  getting  hold  of  ideas 
is  to  go  hunting  expressly  after  them.  The  way  to  get 
them  is  to  study  something  of  which  one  is  fond,  and 
to  note  down  whatever  crosses  one's  mind  in  reference 
to  it,  either  during  study  or  relaxation,  in  a  little  note- 
book kept  always  in  the  waistcoat  pocket.  Ernest  has 
come  to  know  all  about  this  now,  but  it  took  him  a  long 
time  to  find  it  out,  for  this  is  not  the  kind  of  thing  that 
is  taught  at  schools  and  universities. 

Nor  yet  did  he  know  that  ideas,  no  less  than  the  living 
beings  in  whose  minds  they  arise,  must  be  begotten  by 
parents  not  very  unlike  themselves,  the  most  original  still 


230         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

differing  but  slightly  from  the  parents  that  have  given 
rise  to  them.  Life  is  like  a  fugue,  everything  must  grow 
out  of  the  subject  and  there  must  be  nothing  new.  Nor, 
again,  did  he  see  how  hard  it  is  to  say  where  one  idea 
ends  and  another  begins,  nor  yet  how  closely  this  is 
paralleled  in  the  difficulty  of  saying  where  a  life  begins 
or  ends,  or  an  action  or  indeed  anything,  there  being  an 
unity  in  spite  of  infinite  multitude,  and  an  infinite  multi- 
tude in  spite  of  unity.  He  thought  that  ideas  came  into 
clever  people's  heads  by  a  kind  of  spontaneous  germina- 
tion, without  parentage  in  the  thoughts  of  others  or  the 
course  of  observation;  for  as  yet  he  believed  in  genius, 
of  which  he  well  knew  that  he  had  none,  if  it  was  the 
fine  frenzied  thing  he  thought  it  was. 

Not  very  long  before  this  he  had  come  of  age,  and 
Theobald  had  handed  him  over  his  money,  which 
amounted  now  to  £5000;  it  was  invested  to  bring  in  £5 
per  cent,  and  gave  him  therefore  an  income  of  ^250  a 
year.  He  did  not,  however,  realise  the  fact  (he  could 
realise  nothing  so  foreign  to  his  experience)  that  he  was 
independent  of  his  father  till  a  long  time  afterwards ;  nor 
did  Theobald  make  any  difference  in  his  manner  towards 
him.  So  strong  was  the  hold  which  habit  and  association 
held  over  both  father  and  son,  that  the  one  considered 
he  had  as  good  a  right  as  ever  to  dictate,  and  the  other 
that  he  had  as  little  right  as  ever  to  gainsay. 

During  his  last  year  at  Cambridge  he  overworked  him- 
self through  this  very  blind  deference  to  his  father's 
wishes,  for  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  take  more 
than  a  poll  degree  except  that  his  father  laid  such  stress 
upon  his  taking  honours.  He  became  so  ill,  indeed,  that 
it  was  doubtful  how  far  he  would  be  able  to  go  in  for  his 
degree  at  all ;  but  he  managed  to  do  so,  and  when  the 
list  came  out  was  found  to  be  placed  higher  than  either 
he  or  anyone  else  expected,  being  among  the  first  three 
or  four  senior  optimes,  and  a  few  weeks  later,  in  the 
lower  half  of  the  second  class  of  the  Classical  Tripos. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         231 

111  as  he  was  when  he  got  home,  Theobald  made  him  go 
over  all  the  examination  papers  with  him,  and  in  fact 
reproduce  as  nearly  as  possible  the  replies  that  he  had 
sent  in.  So  little  kick  had  he  in  him,  and  so  deep  was 
the  groove  into  which  he  had  got,  that  while  at  home  he 
spent  several  hours  a  day  in  continuing  his  classical  and 
mathematical  studies  as  though  he  had  not  yet  taken 
his  degree. 


CHAPTER  XLVII 

ERNEST  returned  to  Cambridge  for  the  May  term  of  1858, 
on  the  plea  of  reading  for  ordination,  with  which  he  was 
now  face  to  face,  and  much  nearer  than  he  liked.  Up  to 
this  time,  though  not  religiously  inclined,  he  had  never 
doubted  the  truth  of  anything  that  had  been  told  him 
about  Christianity.  He  had  never  seen  anyone  who 
doubted,  nor  read  anything  that  raised  a  suspicion  in  his 
mind  as  to  the  -historical  character  of  the  miracles 
recorded  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  year  1858  was  the  last 
of  a  term  during  which  the  peace  of  the  Church  of 
England  was  singularly  unbroken.  Between  1844,  when 
"Vestiges  of  Creation"  appeared,  and  1859,  when  "Essays 
and  Reviews"  marked  the  commencement  of  that  storm 
which  raged  until  many  years  afterwards,  there  was  not 
a  single  book  published  in  England  that  caused  serious 
commotion  within  the  bosom  of  the  Church.  Perhaps 
Buckle's  "History  of  Civilisation"  and  Mill's  "Liberty" 
were  the  most  alarming,  but  they  neither  of  them  reached 
the  substratum  of  the  reading  public,  and  Ernest  and  his 
friends  were  ignorant  of  their  very  existence.  The 
Evangelical  movement,  with  the  exception  to  which  I 
shall  revert  presently,  had  become  almost  a  matter  of 
ancient  history.  Tractarianism  had  subsided  into  a  tenth 
day's  wonder;  it  was  at  work,  but  it  was  not  noisy. 


232         The  Way  of  All  FlesK 

The  "Vestiges"  were  forgotten  before  Ernest  went  up  to 
Cambridge;  the  Catholic  aggression  scare  had  lost  its 
terrors ;  Ritualism  was  still  unknown  by  the  general  pro- 
vincial public,  and  the  Gorham  and  Hampden  controver- 
sies were  defunct  some  years  since;  Dissent  was  not 
spreading;  the  Crimean  war  was  the  one  engrossing 
subject,  to  be  followed  by  the  Indian  Mutiny  and  the 
Franco- Austrian  war.  These  great  events  turned  men's 
minds  from  speculative  subjects,  and  there  was  no  enemy 
to  the  faith  which  could  arouse  even  a  languid  interest. 
At  no  time  probably  since  the  beginning  of  the  century 
could  an  ordinary  observer  have  detected  less  sign  of 
coming  disturbance  than  at  that  of  which  I  am  writ- 
ing. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  the  calm  was  only  on  the  surface. 
Older  men,  who  knew  more  than  undergraduates  were 
likely  to  do,  must  have  seen  that  the  wave  of  scepticism 
which  had  already  broken  over  Germany  was  setting 
towards  our  own  shores,  nor  was  it  long,  indeed,  before 
it  reached  them.  Ernest  had  hardly  been  ordained  before 
three  works  in  quick  succession  arrested  the  attention 
even  of  those  who  paid  least  heed  to  theological  con- 
troversy. I  mean  "Essays  and  Reviews,"  Charles  Dar- 
win's "Origin  of  Species,"  and  Bishop  Colenso's  "Criti- 
cisms on  the  Pentateuch." 

This,  however,  is  a  digression ;  I  must  revert  to  the  one 
phase  of  spiritual  activity  which  had  any  life  in  it  during 
the  time  Ernest  was  at  Cambridge,  that  is  to  say,  to  the 
remains  of  the  Evangelical  awakening  of  more  than  a 
generation  earlier,  which  was  connected  with  the  name  of 
Simeon. 

There  were  still  a  good  many  Simeonites,  or  as  they 
were  more  briefly  called  "Sims,"  in  Ernest's  time.  Every 
college  contained  some  of  them,  but  their  headquarters 
were  at  Caius,  whither  they  were  attracted  by  Mr.  Clay- 
ton who  was  at  that  time  senior  tutor,  and  among  the 
sizars  of  St.  John's. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         233 

Behind  the  then  chapel  of  this  last-named  college,  there 
was  a  "labyrinth"  (this  was  the  name  it  bore)  of  dingy, 
tumble-down  rooms,  tenanted  exclusively  by  the  poorest 
undergraduates,  who  were  dependent  upon  sizarships  and 
scholarships  for  the  means  of  taking  their  degrees.  To 
many,  even  at  St.  John's,  the  existence  and  whereabouts 
of  the  labyrinth  in  which  the  sizars  chiefly  lived  was 
unknown ;  some  men  in  Ernest's  time,  who  had  rooms  in 
the  first  court,  had  never  found  their  way  through  the 
sinuous  passage  which  led  to  it. 

In  the  labyrinth  there  dwelt  men  of  all  ages,  from  mere 
lads  to  grey-haired  old  men  who  had  entered  late  in  life. 
They  were  rarely  seen  except  in  hall  or  chapel  or  at 
lecture,  where  their  manners  of  feeding,  praying  and 
studying,  were  considered  alike  objectionable;  no  one 
knew  whence  they  came,  whither  they  went,  nor  what 
they  did,  for  they  never  showed  at  cricket  or  the  boats ; 
they  were  a  gloomy,  seedy-looking  confrerie,  who  had 
as  little  to  glory  in  in  clothes  and  manners  as  in  the  flesh 
itself. 

Ernest  and  his  friends  used  to  consider  themselves 
marvels  of  economy  for  getting  on  with  so  little  money, 
but  the  greater  number  of  dwellers  in  the  labyrinth  would 
have  considered  one-half  of  their  expenditure  to  be  an 
exceeding  measure  of  affluence,  and  so  doubtless  any 
domestic  tyranny  which  had  been  experienced  by  Ernest 
was  a  small  thing  to  what  the  average  Johnian  sizar  had 
had  to  put  up  with. 

A  few  would  at  once  emerge  on  its  being  found  after 
their  first  examination  that  they  were  likely  to  be  orna- 
ments to  the  college;  these  would  win  valuable  scholar- 
ships that  enabled  them  to  live  in  some  degree  of  com- 
fort, and  would  amalgamate  with  the  more  studious  of 
those  who  were  in  a  better  social  position,  but  even  these, 
with  few  exceptions,  were  long  in  shaking  off  the  un- 
couthness  they  brought  with  them  to  the  University,  nor 
would  their  origin  cease  to  be  easily  recognisable  till  they 


234         The  Way  of  All  FlesK 

had  become  dons  and  tutors.  I  have  seen  some  of  these 
men  attain  high  position  in  the  world  of  politics  or 
science,  and  yet  still  retain  a  look  of  labyrinth  and 
Johnian  sizarship. 

Unprepossessing  then,  in  feature,  gait  and  manners, 
unkempt  and  ill-dressed  beyond  what  can  be  easily 
described,  these  poor  fellows  formed  a  class  apart,  whose 
thoughts  and  ways  were  not  as  the  thoughts  and  ways  of 
Ernest  and  his  friends,  and  it  was  among  them  that 
Simeonism  chiefly  flourished. 

Destined  most  of  them  for  the  Church  (for  in  those 
days  "holy  orders"  were  seldom  heard  of),  the  Simeon- 
ites  held  themselves  to  have  received  a  very  loud  call  to 
the  ministry,  and  were  ready  to  pinch  themselves  for 
years  so  as  to  prepare  for  it  by  the  necessary  theological 
courses.  To  most  of  them  the  fact  of  becoming  clergy- 
men would  be  the  entree  into  a  social  position  from  which 
they  were  at  present  kept  out  by  barriers  they  well  knew 
to  be  impassable ;  ordination,  therefore,  opened  fields  for 
ambition  which  made  it  the  central  point  in  their  thoughts, 
rather  than  as  with  Ernest,  some'thing  which  he  supposed 
would  have  to  be  done  some  day,  but  about  which,  as 
about  dying,  he  hoped  there  was  no  need  to  trouble  him- 
self as  yet. 

By  way  of  preparing  themselves  more  completely  they 
would  have  meetings  in  one  another's  rooms  for  tea  and 
prayer  and  other  spiritual  exercises.  Placing  themselves 
under  the  guidance  of  a  few  well-known  tutors  they 
would  teach  in  Sunday  Schools,  and  be  instant,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  in  imparting  spiritual  instruction  to 
all  whom  they  could  persuade  to  listen  to  them* 

But  the  soil  of  the  more  prosperous  undergraduates 
was  not  suitable  for  the  seed  they  tried  to  sow.  The 
small  pieties  with  which  they  larded  their  discourse,  if 
chance  threw  them  into  the  company  of  one  whom  they 
considered  worldly,  caused  nothing  but  aversion  in  the 
minds  of  those  for  whom  they  were  intended.  When 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         235 

they  distributed  tracts,  dropping  them  by  night  into  good 
men's  letter  boxes  while  they  were  asleep,  their  tracts  got 
burnt,  or  met  with  even  worse  contumely;  they  were 
themselves  also  treated  with  the  ridicule  which  they  re- 
flected proudly  had  been  the  lot  of  true  followers  of 
Christ  in  all  ages.  Often  at  their  prayer  meetings  was 
the  passage  of  St.  Paul  referred  to  in  which  he  bids  his 
Corinthian  converts  note  concerning  themselves  that  they 
were  for  the  most  part  neither  well-bred  nor  intellectual 
people.  They  reflected  with  pride  that  they  too  had  noth- 
ing to  be  proud  of  in  these  respects,  and  like  St.  Paul, 
gloried  in  the  fact  that  in  the  flesh  they  had  not  much  to 
glory. 

Ernest  had  several  Johnian  friends,  and  came  thus  to 
hear  about  the  Simeonites  and  to  see  some  of  them,  who 
were  pointed  out  to  him  as  they  passed  through  the 
courts.  They  had  a  repellent  attraction  for  him ;  he  dis- 
liked them,  but  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  leave  them 
alone.  On  one  occasion  he  had  gone  so  far  as  to  parody 
one  of  the  tracts  they  had  sent  round  in  the  night,  and 
to  get  a  copy  dropped  '"nto  each  of  the  leading  Simeonites' 
boxes.  The  subject  he  had  taken  was  "Personal  Cleanli- 
ness." Cleanliness,  he  said,  was  next  to  godliness;  he 
wished  to  know  on  which  side  it  was  to  stand,  and  con- 
cluded by  exhorting  Simeonites  to  a  freer  use  of  the  tub. 
I  cannot  commend  my  hero's  humour  in  this  matter ;  his 
tract  was  not  brilliant,  but  I  mention  the  fact  as  showing 
that  at  this  time  he  was  something  of  a  Saul  and  took 
pleasure  in  persecuting  the  elect,  not,  as  I  have  said,  that 
he  had  any  hankering  after  scepticism,  but  because,  like 
the  farmers  in  his  father's  village,  though  he  would  not 
stand  seeing  the  Christian  religion  made  light  of,  he  was 
not  going  to  see  it  taken  seriously.  Ernest's  friends 
thought  his  dislike  for  Simeonites  was  due  to  his  being 
the  son  of  a  clergyman  who,  it  was  known,  bullied  him; 
it  is  more  likely,  however,  that  it  rose  from  an  uncon- 
scious sympathy  with  them,  which,  as  in  St.  Paul's  case,  in 


236         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

the  end  drew  him  into  the  ranks  of  those  whom  he  had 
most  despised  and  hated. 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 

ONCE,  recently,  when  he  was  down  at  home  after  taking 
his  degree,  his  mother  had  had  a  short  conversation  with 
him  about  his  becoming  a  clergyman,  set  on  thereto 
by  Theobald,  who  shrank  from  the  subject  himself. 
This  time  it  was  during  a  turn  taken  in  the  garden,  and 
not  on  the  sofa — which  was  reserved  for  supreme  oc- 
casions. 

"You  know,  my  dearest  boy,"  she  said  to  him,  "that 
papa"  (she  always  called  Theobald  "papa"  when  talking 
to  Ernest)  "is  so  anxious  you  should  not  go  into  the 
Church  blindly,  and  without  fully  realising  the  difficulties 
of  a  clergyman's  position.  He  has  considered  all  of  them 
himself,  and  has  been  shown  how  small  they  are,  when 
they  are  faced  boldly,  but  he  wishes  you,  too,  to  feel  them 
as  strongly  and  completely  as  possible  before  committing 
yourself  to  irrevocable  vows,  so  that  you  may  never, 
never  have  to  regret  the  step  you  will  have  taken." 

This  was  the  first  time  Ernest  had  heard  that  there 
were  any  difficulties,  and  he  not  unnaturally  enquired  in  a 
vague  way  after  their  nature. 

"That,  my  dear  boy,"  rejoined  Christina,  "is  a  ques- 
tion which  I  am  not  fitted  to  enter  upon  either  by  nature 
or  education.  I  might  easily  unsettle  your  mind  without 
being  able  to  settle  it  again.  Oh,  no!  Such  questions 
are  far  better  avoided  by  women,  and,  I  should  have 
thought,  by  men,  but  papa  wished  me  to  speak  to  you 
upon  the  subject,  so  that  there  might  be  no  mistake  here- 
after, and  I  have  done  so.  Now,  therefore,  you  know 
all." 

The  conversation  ended  here,  so  far  as  this  subject 
was  concerned,  and  Ernest  thought  he  did  know  all. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         237 

His  mother  would  not  have  told  him  he  knew  all — not 
about  a  matter  of  that  sort — unless  he  actually  did  know 
it ;  well,  it  did  not  come  to  very  much ;  he  supposed  there 
were  some  difficulties,  but  his  father,  who  at  any  rate 
was  an  excellent  scholar  and  a  learned  man,  was  probably 
quite  right  here,  and  he  need  not  trouble  himself  more 
about  them.  So  little  impression  did  the  conversation 
make  on  him,  that  it  was  not  till  long  afterwards  that, 
happening  to  remember  it,  he  saw  what  a  piece  of  sleight 
of  hand  had  been  practised  upon  him.  Theobald  and 
Christina,  however,  were  satisfied  that  they  had  done 
their  duty  by  opening  their  son's  eyes  to  the  difficulties  of 
assenting  to  all  a  clergyman  must  assent  to.  This  was 
enough;  it  was  a  matter  for  rejoicing  that,  though  they 
had  been  put  so  fully  and  candidly  before  him,  he  did 
not  find  them  serious.  It  was  not  in  vain  that  they  had 
prayed  for  so  many  years  to  be  made  "truly  honest  and 
conscientious." 

"And  now,  my  dear,"  resumed  Christina,  after  having 
disposed  of  all  the  difficulties  that  might  stand  in  the  way 
of  Ernest's  becoming  a  clergyman,  "there  is  another  mat- 
ter on  which  I  should  like  to  have  a  talk  with  you.  It  is 
about  your  sister  Charlotte.  You  know  how  clever  she  is, 
and  what  a  (Jear,  kind  sister  she  has  been  and  always  will 
be  to  yourself  and  Joey.  I  wish,  my  dearest  Ernest, 
that  I  saw  more  chance  of  her  finding  a  suitable  husband 
than  I  do  at  Battersby,  and  I  sometimes  think  you  might 
do  more  than  you  do  to  help  her." 

Ernest  began  to  chafe  at  this,  for  he  had  heard  it  so 
often,  but  he  said  nothing. 

"You  know,  my  dear,  a  brother  can  do  so  much  for  his 
sister  if  he  lays  himself  out  to  do  it.  A  mother  can  do 
very  little — indeed,  it  is  hardly  a  mother's  place  to  seek 
out  young  men ;  it  is  a  brother's  place  to  find  a  suitable 
partner  for  his  sister ;  all  that  I  can  do  is  to  try  to  make 
Battersby  as  attractive  as  possible  to  any  of  your  friends 
whom  you  may  invite.  And  in  that,"  she  added,  with 


238         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

a  little  toss  of  her  head,  "I  do  not  think  I  have  been 
deficient  hitherto." 

Ernest  said  he  had  already  at  different  times  asked 
several  of  his  friends. 

"Yes,  my  dear,  but  you  must  admit  that  they  were  none 
of  them  exactly  the  kind  of  young  man  whom  Charlotte 
could  be  expected  to  take  a  fancy  to.  Indeed,  I  must 
own  to  having  been  a  little  disappointed  that  you  should 
have  yourself  chosen  any  of  these  as  your  intimate 
friends." 

Ernest  winced  again. 

"You  never  brought  down  Figgins  when  you  were  at 
Roughborough ;  now  I  should  have  thought  Figgins  would 
have  been  just  the  kind  of  boy  whom  you  might  have 
asked  to  come  and  see  us." 

Figgins  had  been  gone  through  times  out  of  number 
already.  Ernest  had  hardly  known  him,  and  Figgins, 
being  nearly  three  years  older  than  Ernest,  had  left  long 
before  he  did.  Besides,  he  had  not  been  a  nice  boy,  and 
had  made  himself  unpleasant  to  Ernest  in  many  ways. 

"Now,"  continued  his  mother,  "there's  Towneley.  I 
have  heard  you  speak  of  Towneley  as  having  rowed  with 
you  in  a  boat  at  Cambridge.  I  wish,  my  dear,  you  would 
cultivate  "your  acquaintance  with  Towneley,  and  ask  him 
to  pay  us  a  visit.  The  name  has  an  aristocratic  sound, 
and  I  think  I  have  heard  you  say  he  is  an  eldest  son." 

Ernest  flushed  at  the  sound  of  Towneley 's  name. 

What  had  really  happened  in  respect  of  Ernest's 
friends  was  briefly  this :  His  mother  liked  to  get  hold  of 
the  names  of  the  boys  and  especially  of  any  who  were 
at  all  intimate  with  her  son;  the  more  she  heard,  the 
more  she  wanted  to  know ;  there  was  no  gorging  her  to 
satiety;  she  was  like  a  ravenous  young  cuckoo  being  fed 
upon  a  grass  plot  by  a  water  wag-tail,  she  would  swallow 
all  that  Ernest  could  bring  her,  and  yet  be  as  hungry  as 
before.  And  she  always  went  to  Ernest  for  her  meals 
rather  than  to  Joey,  for  Joey  was  either  more  stupid  or 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         239 

more  impenetrable — at  any  rate  she  could  pump  Ernest 
much  the  better  of  the  two. 

From  time  to  time  an  actual  live  boy  had  been  thrown 
to  her,  either  by  being  caught  and  brought  to  Battersby, 
or  by  being  asked  to  meet  her  if  at  any  time  she  came  to 
Roughborough.  She  had  generally  made  herself  agree- 
able, or  fairly  agreeable,  as  long  as  the  boy  was  present, 
but  as  soon  as  she  got  Ernest  to  herself  again  she  changed 
her  note.  Into  whatever  form  she  might  throw  her  criti- 
cisms it  came  always  in  the  end  to  this,  that  his  friend 
was  no  good,  that  Ernest  was  not  much  better,  and  that 
he  should  have  brought  her  someone  else,  for  this  one 
would  not  do  at  all. 

The  more  intimate  the  boy  had  been  or  was  supposed 
to  be  with  Ernest  the  more  he  was  declared  to  be  naught, 
till  in  the  end  he  had  hit  upon  the  plan  of  saying,  con- 
cerning any  boy  whom  he  particularly  liked,  that  he  was 
not  one  of  his  especial  chums,  and  that  indeed  he  hardly 
knew  why  he  had  asked  him;  but  he  found  he  only  fell 
on  Scylla  in  trying  to  avoid  Charybdis,  for  though  the 
boy  was  declared  to  be  more  successful,  it  was  Ernest 
who  was  naught  for  not  thinking  more  highly  of  him. 

When  she  had  once  got  hold  of  a  name  she  never  for- 
got it.  "And  how  is  So-and-so?"  she  would  exclaim, 
mentioning  some  former  friend  of  Ernest's  with  whom 
he  had  either  now  quarrelled,  or  who  had  long  since 
proved  to  be  a  mere  comet  and  no  fixed  star  at  all.  How 
Ernest  wished  he  had  never  mentioned  So-and-so's  name, 
and  vowed  to  himself  that  he  would  never  talk  about  his 
friends  in  future,  but  in  a  few  hours  he  would  forget 
and  would  prattle  away  as  imprudently  as  ever ;  then  his 
mother  would  pounce  noiselessly  on  his  remarks  as  a 
barn-owl  pounces  upon  a  mouse,  and  would  bring  them 
up  in  a  pellet  six  months  afterwards  when  they  were  no 
longer  in  harmony  with  their  surroundings. 

Then  there  was  Theobald.  If  a  boy  or  college  friend 
had  been  invited  to  Battersby,  Theobald  would  lay  him- 


240         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

self  out  at  first  to  be  agreeable.  He  could  do  this  well 
enough  when  he  liked,  and  as  regards  the  outside  world 
he  generally  did  like.  His  clerical  neighbours,  and  in- 
deed all  his  neighbours,  respected  him  yearly  more  and 
more,  and  would  have  given  Ernest  sufficient  cause  to 
regret  his  imprudence  if  he  had  dared  to  hint  that  he  had 
anything,  however  little,  to  complain  of.  Theobald's 
mind  worked  in  this  way:  "Now,  I  know  Ernest  has 
told  this  boy  what  a  disagreeable  person  I  am,  and  I  will 
just  show  him  that  I  am  not  disagreeable  at  all,  but  a 
good  old  fellow,  a  jolly  old  boy,  in  fact  a  regular  old 
brick,  and  that  it  is  Ernest  who  is  in  fault  all  through." 

So  he  would  behave  very  nicely  to  the  boy  at  first,  and 
the  boy  would  be  delighted  with  him,  and  side  with  him 
against  Ernest.  Of  course  if  Ernest  had  got  the  boy 
to  come  to  Battersby  he  wanted  him  to  enjoy  his  visit, 
and  was  therefore  pleased  that  Theobald  should  behave 
so  well,  but  at  the  same  time  he  stood  so  much  in  need 
of  moral  support  that  it  was  painful  to  him  to  see  one 
of  his  own  familiar  friends  go  over  to  the  enemy's  camp. 
For  no  matter  how  well  we  may  know  a  thing — how 
clearly  we  may  see  a  certain  patch  of  colour,  for  exam- 
ple, as  red,  it  shakes  us  and  knocks  us  about  to  find  an- 
other see  it,  or  be  more  than  half  inclined  to  see  it,  as 
green. 

Theobald  had  generally  begun  to  get  a  little  impatient 
before  the  end  of  the  visit,  but  the  impression  formed 
during  the  earlier  part  was  the  one  which  the  visitor  had 
carried  away  with  him.  Theobald  never  discussed  any 
of  the  boys  with  Ernest.  It  was  Christina  who  did  this. 
Theobald  let  them  come,  because  Christina  in  a  quiet, 
persistent  way,  insisted  on  it;  when  they  did  come  he 
behaved,  as  I  have  said,  civilly,  but  he  did  not  like  it, 
whereas  Christina  did  like  it  very  much ;  she  would  have 
had  half  Roughborough  and  half  Cambridge  to  come  and 
stay  at  Battersby  if  she  could  have  managed  it,  and  if  it 
would  not  have  cost  so  much  money :  she  liked  their  com- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         241 

ing,  so  that  she  might  make  a  new  acquaintance,  and  she 
liked  tearing  them  to  pieces  and  flinging  the  bits  over 
Ernest  as  soon  as  she  had  had  enough  of  them. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that  she  had  so  often  proved  to  be 
right.  Boys  and  young  men  are  violent  in  their  affec- 
tions, but  they  are  seldom  very  constant ;  it  is  not  till  they 
get  older  that  they  really  know  the  kind  of  friend  they 
want ;  in  their  earlier  essays  young  men  are  simply  learn- 
ing to  judge  character.  Ernest  had  been  no  exception  to 
the  general  rule.  His  swans  had  one  after  the  other 
proved  to  be  more  or  less  geese  even  in  his  own  estima- 
tion, and  he  was  beginning  almost  to  think  that  his 
mother  was  a  better  judge  of  character  than  he  was;  but 
I  think  it  may  be  assumed  with  some  certainty  that  if 
Ernest  had  brought  her  a  real  young  swan  she  would 
have  declared  it  to  be  the  ugliest  and  worst  goose  of  all 
that  she  had  yet  seen. 

At  first  he  had  not  suspected  that  his  friends  were 
wanted  with  a  view  to  Charlotte ;  it  was  understood  that 
Charlotte  and  they  might  perhaps  take  a  fancy  for  one 
another;  and  that  would  be  so  very  nice,  would  it  not? 
But  he  did  not  see  that  there  was  any  deliberate  malice 
in  the  arrangement.  Now,  however,  that  he  had  awoke 
to  what  it  all  meant,  he  was  less  inclined  to  bring  any 
friend  of  his  to  Battersby.  It  seemed  to  his  silly  young 
mind  almost  dishonest  to  ask  your  friend  to  come  and 
see  you  when  all  you  really  meant  was,  "Please,  marry 
my  sister."  It  was  like  trying  to  obtain  money  under 
false  pretences.  If  he  had  been  fond  of  Charlotte  it 
might  have  been  another  matter,  but  he  thought  her  one 
of  the  most  disagreeable  young  women  in  the  whole  cir- 
cle of  his  acquaintance. 

She  was  supposed  to  be  very  clever.  All  young  ladies 
are  either  very  pretty  or  very  clever  or  very  sweet ;  they 
may  take  their  choice  as  to  which  category  they  will  go  in 
for,  but  go  in  for  one  of  the  three  they  must.  It  was 
hopeless  to  try  and  pass  Charlotte  off  as  either  pretty  or 


242         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

sweet.  So  she  became  clever  as  the  only  remaining  alter- 
native. Ernest  never  knew  what  particular  branch  of 
study  it  was  in  which  she  showed  her  talent,  for  she 
could  neither  play  nor  sing  nor  draw,  but  so  astute  are 
women  that  his  mother  and  Charlotte  really  did  persuade 
him  into  thinking  that  she,  Charlotte,  had  something 
more  akin  to  true  genius  than  any  other  member  of  the 
family.  Not  one,  however,  of  all  the  friends  whom  Er- 
nest had  been  inveigled  into  trying  to  inveigle  had  shown 
the  least  sign  of  being  so  far  struck  with  Charlotte's 
commanding  powers,  as  to  wish  to  make  them  his  own, 
and  this  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  the  rapidity 
and  completeness  with  which  Christina  had  dismissed 
them  one  after  another  and  had  wanted  a  new  one. 

And  now  she  wanted  Towneley.  Ernest  had  seen  this 
coming  and  had  tried  to  avoid  it,  for  he  knew  how  im- 
possible it  was  for  him  to  ask  Towneley  even  if  he  had 
wished  to  do  so. 

Towneley  belonged  to  one  of  the  most  exclusive  sets 
in  Cambridge,  and  was  perhaps  the  most  popular  man 
among  the  whole  number  of  undergraduates.  He  was 
big  and  very  handsome — as  it  seemed  to  Ernest  the  hand- 
somest man  whom  he  ever  had  seen  or  ever  could  see, 
for  it  was  impossible  to  imagine  a  more  lively  and  agree- 
able countenance.  He  was  good  at  cricket  and  boating, 
very  good-natured,  singularly  free  from  conceit,  not 
clever  but  very  sensible,  and,  lastly,  his  father  and  mother 
had  been  drowned  by  the  overturning  of  a  boat  when 
he  was  only  two  years  old  and  had  left  him  as  their  only 
child  and  heir  to  one\)f  the  finest  estates  in  the  South 
of  England.  Fortune  every  now  and  then  does  things 
handsomely  by  a  man  all  round;  Towneley  was  one  of 
those  to  whom  she  had  taken  a  fancy,  and  the  universal 
verdict  in  this  case  was  that  she  had  chosen  wisely. 

Ernest  had  seen  Towneley  as  every  one  else  in  the 
University  (except,  of  course,  dons)  had  seen  him,  for 
he  was  a  man  of  mark,  and  being  very  susceptible  he  had 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         243 

liked  Towne4ey  even  more  than  most  people  did,  but  at 
the  same  time  it  never  so  much  as  entered  his  head  that 
he  should  come  to  know  him.  He  liked  looking  at  him 
if  he  got  a  chance,  and  was  very  much  ashamed  of  him- 
self for  doing  so,  but  there  the  matter  ended. 

By  a  strange  accident,  however,  during  Ernest's  last 
year,  when  the  names  of  the  crews  for  the  scratch  fours 
were  drawn  he  had  found  himself  coxswain  of  a  crew, 
among  whom  was  none  other  than  his  especial  hero 
Towneley;  the  three  others  were  ordinary  mortals,  but 
they  could  row  fairly  well,  and  the  crew  on  the  whole 
was  rather  a  good  one. 

Ernest  was  frightened  out  of  his  wits.  When,  how- 
ever, the  two  met,  he  found  Towneley  no  less  remarkable 
for  his  entire  want  of  anything  like  "side,"  and  for  his 
power  of  setting  those  whom  he  came  across  at  their 
ease,  than  he  was  for  outward  accomplishments ;  the  only 
difference  he  found  between  Towneley  and  other  people 
was  that  he  was  so  very  much  easier  to  get  on  with. 
Of  course  Ernest  worshipped  him  more  and  more. 

The  scratch  fours  being  ended  the  connection  between 
the  two  came  to  an  end,  but  Towneley  never  passed  Er- 
nest thenceforward  without  a  nod  and  a  few  good- 
natured  words.  In  an  evil  moment  he  had  mentioned 
Towneley's  name  at  Battersby,  and  now  what  was  the 
result?  Here  was  his  mother  plaguing  him  to  ask 
Towneley  to  come  down  to  Battersby  and  marry  Char- 
lotte. Why,  if  he  had  thought  there  was  the  remotest 
chance  of  Towneley's  marrying  Charlotte  he  would  have 
gone  down  on  his  knees  to  him  and  told  him  what  an 
odious  young  woman  she  was,  and  implored  him  to  save 
himself  while  there  was  yet  time. 

But  Ernest  had  not  prayed  to  be  made  "truly  honest 
and  conscientious"  for  as  many  years  as  Christina  had. 
He  tried  to  conceal  what  he  felt  and  thought  as  well  as 
he  could,  and  led  the  conversation  back  to  the  difficulties 
which  a  clergyman  might  feel  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his 


244         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

being  ordained — not  because  he  had  any  misgivings,  but 
as  a  diversion.  His  mother,  however,  thought  she  had 
settled  all  that,  and  he  got  no  more  out  of  her.  Soon 
afterwards  he  found  the  means  of  escaping,  and  was  not 
slow  to  avail  himself  of  them. 


CHAPTER  XLIX 

ON  his  return  to  Cambridge  in  the  May  term  of  1858, 
Ernest  and  a  few  other  friends  who  were  also  intended 
for  orders  came  to  the  conclusion  that  they  must  now 
take  a  more  serious  view  of  their  position.  They  there- 
fore attended  chapel  more  regularly  than  hitherto,  and 
held  evening  meetings  of  a  somewhat  furtive  character, 
at  which  they  would  study  the  New  Testament.  They 
even  began  to  commit  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  to  memory 
in  the  original  Greek.  They  got  up  Beveridge  on  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  and  Pearson  on  the  Creed ;  in  their 
hours  of  recreation  they  read  More's  "Mystery  of  Godli- 
ness," which  Ernest  thought  was  charming,  and  Taylor's 
"Holy  Living  and  Dying,"  which  also  impressed  him 
deeply,  through  what  he  thought  was  the  splendour  of 
its  language.  They  handed  themselves  over  to  the  guid- 
ance of  Dean  Alford's  notes  on  the  Greek  Testament, 
which  made  Ernest  better  understand  what  was  meant 
by  "difficulties,"  but  also  made  him  feel  how  shallow  and 
impotent  were  the  conclusions  arrived  at  by  German 
neologians,  with  whose  works,  being  innocent  of  German, 
he  was  not  otherwise  acquainted.  Some  of  the  friends 
who  joined  him  in  these  pursuits  were  Johnians,  and  the 
meetings  were  often  held  within  the  walls  of  St.  John's. 
I  do  not  know  how  tidings  of  these  furtive  gatherings 
had  reached  the  Simeonites,  but  they  must  have  come 
round  to  them  in  some  way,  for  they  had  not  been  con- 
tinued many  weeks  before  a  circular  was  sent  to  each  of 
the  young  men  who  attended  them,  informing  them  that 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         245 

the  Rev.  Gideon  Hawke,  a  well-known  London  Evangeli- 
cal preacher,  whose  sermons  were  then  much  talked  of, 
was  about  to  visit  his  young  friend  Badcock  of  St.  John's, 
and  would  be  glad  to  say  a  few  words  to  any  who  might 
wish  to  hear  them,  in  Badcock's  rooms  on  a  certain  even- 
ing in  May. 

Badcock  was  one  of  the  most  notorious  of  all  the 
Simeonites.  Not  only  was  he  ugly,  dirty,  ill-dressed, 
bumptious,  and  in  every  way  objectionable,  but  he  was 
deformed  and  waddled  when  he  walked  so  that  he  had 
won  a  nickname  which  I  can  only  reproduce  by  calling 
it  "Here's  my  back,  and  there's  my  back,"  because  the 
lower  parts  of  his  back  emphasised  themselves  demon- 
stratively as  though  about  to  fly  off  in  different  direc- 
tions like  the  two  extreme  notes  in  the  chord  of  the  aug- 
mented sixth,  with  every  step  he  took.  It  may  be 
guessed,  therefore,  that  the  receipt  of  the  circular  had 
for  a  moment  an  almost  paralysing  effect  on  those  to 
whom  it  was  addressed,  owing  to  the  astonishment  which 
it  occasioned  them.  It  certainly  was  a  daring  surprise, 
but  like  so  many  deformed  people,  Badcock  was  forward 
and  hard  to  check;  he  was  a  pushing  fellow  to  whom 
the  present  was  just  the  opportunity  he  wanted  for  car- 
rying war  into  the  enemy's  quarters. 

Ernest  and  his  friends  consulted.  Moved  by  the  feel- 
ing that  as  they  were  now  preparing  to  be  clergymen 
they  ought  not  to  stand  so  stiffly  on  social  dignity  as 
heretofore,  and  also  perhaps  by  the  desire  to  have  a  good 
private  view  of  a  preacher  who  was  then  much  upon  the 
lips  of  men,  they  decided  to  accept  the  invitation.  When 
the  appointed  time  came  they  went  with  some  confusion 
and  self-abasement  to  the  rooms  of  this  man,  on  whom 
they  had  looked  down  hitherto  as  from  an  immeasurable 
height,  and  with  whom  nothing  would  have  made  them 
believe  a  few  weeks  earlier  that  they  could  ever  come  to 
be  on  speaking  terms. 

Mr.  Hawke  was  a  very  different-looking  person  from 


246         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Badcock.  He  was  remarkably  handsome,  or  rather 
would  have  been  but  for  the  thinness  of  his  lips,  and  a 
look  of  too  great  firmness  and  inflexibility.  His  features 
were  a  good  deal  like  those  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci ;  more- 
over, he  was  kempt,  looked  in  vigorous  health,  and  was  of 
a  ruddy  countenance.  He  was  extremely  courteous  in  his 
manner,  and  paid  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  Badcock, 
of  whom  he  seemed  to  think  highly.  Altogether  our 
young  friends  were  taken  aback,  and  inclined  to  think 
smaller  beer  of  themselves  and  larger  of  Badcock  than 
was  agreeable  to  the  old  Adam  who  was  still  alive  within 
them.  A  few  well-known  "Sims"  from  St.  John's  and 
other  colleges  were  present,  but  not  enough  to  swamp  the 
Ernest  set,  as,  for  the  sake  of  brevity,  I  will  call  them. 

After  a  preliminary  conversation  in  which  there  was 
nothing  to  offend,  the  business  of  the  evening  began  by 
Mr.  Hawke's  standing  up  at  one  end  of  the  table,  and 
saying,  "Let  us  pray."  The  Ernest  set  did  not  like  this, 
but  they  could  not  help  themselves,  so  they  knelt  down 
and  repeated  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  a  few  others  after 
Mr.  Hawke,  who  delivered  them  remarkably  well.  Then, 
when  all  had  sat  down,  Mr.  Hawke  addressed  them, 
speaking  without  notes  and  taking  for  his  text  the 
words,  "Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou  me  ?"  Whether 
owing  to  Mr.  Hawke's  manner,  which  was  impressive,  or 
to  his  well-known  reputation  for  ability,  or  whether  from 
the  fact  that  each  one  of  the  Ernest  set  knew  that  he 
had  been  more  or  less  a  persecutor  of  the  "Sims"  and 
yet  felt  instinctively  that  the  "Sims"  were  after  all 
much  more  like  the  early  Christians  than  he  was  him- 
self— at  any  rate  the  text,  familiar  though  it  was,  went 
home  to  the  consciences  of  Ernest  and  his  friends  as 
it  had  never  yet  done.  If  Mr.  Hawke  had  stopped  here 
he  would  have  almost  said  enough;  as  he  scanned  the 
faces  turned  towards  him,  and  saw  the  impression 
he  had  made,  he  was  perhaps  minded  to  bring  his  ser- 
mon to  an  end  before  beginning  it,  but  if  so,  he  recon- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         247 

sidered  himself  and  proceeded  as  follows.  I  give  the 
sermon  in  full,  for  it  is  a  typical  one,  and  will  explain 
a  state  of  mind  which  in  another  generation  or  two 
will  seem  to  stand  sadly  in  need  of  explanation. 

"My  young  friends,"  said  Mr.  Hawke,  "I  am  per- 
suaded there  is  not  one  of  you  here  who  doubts  the 
existence  of  a  Personal  God.  If  there  were,  it  is  to  him 
assuredly  that  I  should  first  address  myself.  Should 
I  be  mistaken  in  my  belief  that  all  here  assembled  accept 
the  existence  of  a  God  who  is  present  amongst  us 
though  we  see  him  not,  and  whose  eye  is  upon  our  most 
secret  thoughts,  let  me  implore  the  doubter  to  confer 
with  me  in  private  before  we  part ;  I  will  then  put  before 
him  considerations  through  which  God  has  been  merci- 
fully pleased  to  reveal  himself  to  me,  so  far  as  man  can 
understand  him,  and  which  I  have  found  bring  peace  to 
the  minds  of  others  who  have  doubted. 

"I  assume  also  that  there  is  none  who  doubts  but  that 
this  God,  after  whose  likeness  we  have  been  made,  did 
in  the  course  of  time  have  pity  upon  man's  blindness, 
and  assume  our  nature,  taking  flesh  and  coming  down 
and  dwelling  among  us  as  a  man  indistinguishable  physi- 
cally from  ourselves.  He  who  made  the  sun,  moon  and 
stars,  the  world  and  all  that  therein  is,  came  down 
from  Heaven  in  the  person  of  his  Son,  with  the  express 
purpose  of  leading  a  scorned  life,  and  dying  the  most 
cruel,  shameful  death  which  fiendish  ingenuity  has  in- 
vented. 

"While  on  earth  he  worked  many  miracles.  He  gave 
sight  to  the  blind,  raised  the  dead  to  life,  fed  thousands 
with  a  few  loaves  and  fishes,  and  was  seen  to  walk  upon 
the  waves,  but  at  the  end  of  his  appointed  time  he  died, 
as  was  foredetermined,  upon  the  cross,  and  was  buried 
by  a  few  faithful  friends.  Those,  however,  who  had 
put  him  to  death  set  a  jealous  watch  over  his  tomb. 

"There  is  no  one,  I  feel  sure,  in  this  room  who  doubts 
any  part  of  the  foregoing,  but  if  there  is,  let  me  again 


248         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

pray  him  to  confer  with  me  in  private,  and  I  doubt  not 
that  by  the  blessing  of  God  his  doubts  will  cease. 

"The  next  day  but  one  after  our  Lord  was  buried, 
the  tomb  being  still  jealously  guarded  by  enemies,  an 
angel  was  seen  descending  from  Heaven  with  glittering 
raiment  and  a  countenance  that  shone  like  fire.  This 
glorious  being  rolled  away  the  stone  from  the  grave, 
and  our  Lord  himself  came  forth,  risen  from  the  dead. 

"My  young  friends,  this  is  no  fanciful  story  like 
those  of  the  ancient  deities,  but  a  matter  of  plain  history 
as  certain  as  that  you  and  I  are  now  here  together.  If 
there  is  one  fact  better  vouched  for  than  another  in 
the  whole  range  of  certainties  it  is  the  Resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ;  nor  is  it  less  well  assured  that  a  few 
weeks  after  he  had  risen  from  the  dead,  our  Lord  was 
seen  by  many  hundreds  of  men  and  women  to  rise  amid 
a  host  of  angels  into  the  air  upon  a  heavenward  journey 
till  the  clouds  covered  him  and  concealed  him  from  the 
sight  of  men. 

"It  may  be  said  that  the  truth  of  these  statements  has 
been  denied,  but  what,  let  me  ask  you,  has  become  of 
the  questioners?  Where  are  they  now?  Do  we  see 
them  or  hear  of  them  ?  Have  they  been  able  to  hold  what 
little  ground  they  made  during  the  supineness  of  the 
last  century?  Is  there  one  of  your  fathers  or  mothers 
or  friends  who  does  not  see  through  them?  Is  there  a 
single  teacher  or  preacher  in  this  great  University  who 
has  not  examined  what  these  men  had  to  say,  and  found 
it  naught?  Did  you  ever  meet  one  of  them,  or  do  you 
find  any  of  their  books  securing  the  respectful  attention 
of  those  competent  to  judge  concerning  them?  I  think 
not;  and  I  think  also  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  why  it  is 
that  they  have  sunk  back  into  the  abyss  from  which  they 
for  a  time  emerged :  it  is  because  after  the  most  careful 
and  patient  examination  by  the  ablest  and  most  judicial 
minds  of  many  countries,  their  arguments  were  found 
so  untenable  that  they  themselves  renounced  them. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         249 

They  fled  from  the  field  routed,  dismayed,  and  suing  for 
peace;  nor  have  they  again  come  to  the  front  in  any 
civilised  country. 

"You  know  these  things.  Why,  then,  do  I  insist  upon 
them?*  My  dear  young  friends,  your  own  consciousness 
will  have  made  the  answer  to  each  one  of  you  already; 
it  is  because,  though  you  know  so  well  that  these  things 
did  verily  and  indeed  happen,  you  know  also  that  you 
have  not  realised  them  to  yourselves  as  it  was  your  duty 
to  do,  nor  heeded  their  momentous,  awful  import. 

"And  now  let  me  go  further.  You  all  know  that  you 
will  one  day  come  to  die,  or  if  not  to  die — for  there  are 
not  wanting  signs  which  make  me  hope  that  the  Lord 
may  come  again,  while  some  of  us  now  present  are 
alive — yet  to  be  changed;  for  the  trumpet  shall  sound, 
and  the  dead  shall  be  raised  incorruptible,  for  this  cor- 
ruption must  put  on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal 
put  on  immortality,  and  the  saying  shall  be  brought 
to  pass  that  is  written,  'Death  is  swallowed  up  in  vic- 
tory.' 

"Do  you,  or  do  you  not  believe  that  you  will  one  day 
stand  before  the  Judgment  Seat  of  Christ?  Do  you,  or 
do  you  not  believe  that  you  will  have  to  give  an  account 
for  every  idle  word  that  you  have  ever  spoken?  Do 
you,  or  do  you  not  believe  that  you  are  called  to  live,  not 
according  to  the  will  of  man,  but  according  to  the  will  of 
that  Christ  who  came  down  from  Heaven  out  of  love  for 
you,  who  suffered  and  died  for  you,  who  calls  you  to 
him,  and  yearns  towards  you  that  you  may  take  heed 
even  in  this  your  day — but  who,  if  you  heed  not,  will 
also  one  day  judge  you,  and  with  whom  there  is  no 
variableness  nor  shadow  of  turning? 

"My  dear  young  friends,  strait  is  the  gate,  and  narrow 
is  the  way  which  leadeth  to  Eternal  Life,  and  few  there 
be  that  find  it.  Few,  few,  few,  for  he  who  will  not  give 
up  ALL  for  Christ's  sake,  has  given  up  nothing. 

"If  you  would  live  in  the  friendship  of  this  world,  if 


250         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

indeed  you  are  not  .prepared  to  give  up  everything  you 
most  fondly  cherish,  should  the  Lord  require  it  of  you, 
then,  I  say,  put  the  idea  of  Christ  deliberately  on 
one  side  at  once.  Spit  upon  him,  buffet  him,  crucify  him 
anew,  do  anything  you  like  so  long  as  you  secure  the 
friendship  of  this  world  while  it  is  still  in  your  power 
to  do  so ;  the  pleasures  of  this  brief  life  may  not  be 
worth  paying  for  by  the  torments  of  eternity,  but  they 
are  something  while  they  last.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
you  would  live  in  the  friendship  of  God,  and  be  among 
the  number  of  those  for  whom  Christ  has  not  died  in 
vain;  if,  in  a  word,  you  value  your  eternal  welfare, 
then  give  up  the  friendship  of  this  world;  of  a  surety 
you  must  make  your  choice  between  God  and  Mammon, 
for  you  cannot  serve  both. 

"I  put  these  considerations  before  you,  if  so  homely 
a  term  may  be  pardoned,  as  a  plain  matter  of  business. 
There  is  nothing  low  or  unworthy  in  this,  as  some  lately 
have  pretended,  for  all  nature  shows  us  that  there  is 
nothing  more  acceptable  to  God  than  an  enlightened 
view  of  our  own  self-interest;  never  let  anyone  .delude 
you  here;  it  is  a  simple  question  of  fact;  did  certain 
things  happen  or  did  they  not?  If  they  did  happen,  is 
it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  you  will  make  yourselves 
and  others  more  happy  by  one  course  of  conduct  or  by 
another  ? 

"And  now  let  me  ask  you  what  answer  you  have  made 
to  this  question  hitherto?  Whose  friendship  have  you 
chosen?  If,  knowing  what  you  know,  you  have  not  yet 
begun  to  act  according  to  the  immensity  of  the  knowl- 
edge that  is  in  you,  then  he  who  builds  his  house  and 
lays  up  his  treasure  on  the  edge  of  a  crater  of  molten 
lava  is  a  sane,  sensible  person  in  comparison  with  your- 
selves. I  say  this  as  no  figure  of  speech  or  bugbear  with 
which  to  frighten  you,  but  as  an  unvarnished  unexagger- 
ated  statement  which  will  be  no  more  disputed  by  your- 
selves than  by  me." 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         251 

And  now  Mr.  Hawke,  who  up  to  this  time  had  spoken 
with  singular  quietness,  changed  his  manner  to  one  of 
greater  warmth  and  continued — 

"Oh!  my  young  friends,  turn,  turn,  turn,  now  while 
it  is  called  to-day — now  from  this  hour,  from  this  in- 
stant ;  stay  not  even  to  gird  up  your  loins ;  look  not  be- 
hind you  for  a  second,  but  fly  into  the  bosom  of  that 
Christ  who  is  to  be  found  of  all  who  seek  him,  and  from 
that  fearful  wrath  of  God  which  lieth  in  wait  for  those 
who  know  not  the  things  belonging  to  their  peace.  For 
the  Son  of  Man  cometh  as  a  thief  in  the  night,  and  there 
is  not  one  of  us  can  tell  but  what  this  day  his  soul  may 
be  required  of  him.  If  there  is  even  one  here  who  has 
heeded  me," — and  he  let  his  eye  fall  for  an  instant  upon 
almost  all  his  hearers,  but  especially  on  the  Ernest  set — 
"I  shall  know  that  it  was  not  for  nothing  that  I  felt  the 
call  of  the  Lord,  and  heard  as  I  thought  a  voice  by  night 
that  bade  me  come  hither  quickly,  for  there  was  a  chosen 
vessel  who  had  need  of  me." 

Here  Mr.  Hawke  ended  rather  abruptly;  his  earnest 
manner,  striking  countenance  and  excellent  delivery  had 
produced  an  effect  greater  than  the  actual  words  I  have 
given  can  convey  to  the  reader ;  the  virtue  lay  in  the  man 
more  than  in  what  he  said ;  as  for  the  last  few  mysterious 
words  about  his  having  heard  a  voice  by  night,  their 
effect  was  magical;  there  was  not  one  who  did  not  look 
down  to  the  ground,  nor  who  in  his  heart  did  not  half 
believe  that  he  was  the  chosen  vessel  on  whose  especial 
behalf  God  had  sent  Mr.  Hawke  to  Cambridge.  Even 
if  this  were  not  so,  each  one  of  them  felt  that  he  was 
now  for  the  first  time  in  the  actual  presence  of  one  who 
had  had  a  direct  communication  from  the  Almighty,  and 
they  were  thus  suddenly  brought  a  hundredfold  nearer 
to  the  New  Testament  miracles.  They  were  amazed, 
not  to  say  scared,  and  as  though  by  tacit  consent  they 
gathered  together,  thanked  Mr.  Hawke  for  his  sermon, 
said  good-night  in  a  humble,  deferential  manner  to  Bad- 


252         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

cock  and  the  other  Simeonites,  and  left  the  room  to- 
gether. They  had  heard  nothing  but  what  they  had  been 
hearing  all  their  lives ;  how  was  it,  then,  that  they  were 
so  dumbfounded  by  it?  I  suppose  partly  because  they 
had  lately  begun  to  think  more  seriously,  and  were  in  a 
fit  state  to  be  impressed,  partly  from  the  greater  direct- 
ness with  which  each  felt  himself  addressed,  through 
the  sermon  being  delivered  in  a  room,  and  partly  to  the 
logical  consistency,  freedom  from  exaggeration,  and 
profound  air  of  conviction  with  which  Mr.  Hawke  had 
spoken.  His  simplicity  and  obvious  earnestness  had 
impressed  them  even  before  he  had  alluded  to  his  special 
mission,  but  this  clenched  everything,  and  the  words 
"Lord,  is  it  I?"  were  upon  the  hearts  of  each  as  they 
walked  pensively  home  through  moonlit  courts  and 
cloisters. 

I  do  not  know  what  passed  among  the  Simeonites  after 
the  Ernest  set  had  left  them,  but  they  would  have  been 
more  than  mortal  if  they  had  not  been  a  good  deal  elated 
with  the  results  of  the  evening.  Why,  one  of  Ernest's 
friends  was  in  the  University  eleven,  and  he  had  actually 
been  in  Badcock's  rooms  and  had  slunk  off  on  saying 
good-night  as  meekly  as  any  of  them.  It  was  no  small 
thing  to  have  scored  a  success  like  this. 


CHAPTER   L 

ERNEST  felt  now  that  the  turning  point  of  his  life  had 
come.  He  would  give  up  all  for  Christ — even  his  to- 
bacco. 

So  he  gathered  together  his  pipes  and  pouches, 
and  locked  them  up  in  his  portmanteau  under  his  bed 
where  they  should  be  out  of  sight,  and  as  much  out  of 
mind  as  possible.  He  did  not  burn  them,  because  some- 
one might  come  in  who  wanted  to  smoke,  and  though 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         253 

he  might  abridge  his  own  liberty,  yet,  as  smoking  was 
not  a  sin,  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  be  hard 
on  other  people. 

After  breakfast  he  left  his  rooms  to  call  on  a  man 
named  Dawson,  who  had  been  one  of  Mr.  Hawke's  hear- 
ers on  the  preceding  evening,  and  who  was  reading  for 
ordination  at  the  forthcoming  Ember  Weeks,  now  only 
four  months  distant.  This  man  had  been  always  of  a 
rather  serious  turn  of  mind — a  little  too  much  so  for 
Ernest's  taste;  but  times  had  changed,  and  Dawson's 
undoubted  sincerity  seemed  to  render  him  a  fitting  coun- 
sellor for  Ernest  at  the  present  time.  As  he  was  going 
through  the  first  court  of  John's  on  his  way  to  Daw- 
son's  rooms,  he  met  Badcock,  and  greeted  him  with 
some  deference.  His  advance  was  received  with  one 
of  those  ecstatic  gleams  which  shone  occasionally  upon 
the  face  of  Badcock,  and  which,  if  Ernest  had  known 
more,  would  have  reminded  him  of  Robespierre.  As  it 
was,  he  saw  it  and  unconsciously  recognised  the  unrest 
and  self-seekingness  of  the  man,  but  could  not  yet  formu- 
late them;  he  disliked  Badcock  more  than  ever,  but  as  he 
was  going  to  profit  by  the  spiritual  benefits  which  he  had 
put  in  his  way,  he  was  bound  to  be  civil  to  him,  and  civil 
he  therefore  was. 

Badcock  told  him  that  Mr.  Hawke  had  returned  to 
town  immediately  his  discourse  was  over,  but  that  be- 
fore doing  so  he  had  enquired  particularly  who  Ernest 
and  two  or  three  others  were.  I  believe  each  one  of 
Ernest's  friends  was  given  to  understand  that  he  had 
been  more  or  less  particularly  enquired  after.  Ernest's 
vanity — for  he  was  his  mother's  son — was  tickled  at  this ; 
the  idea  again  presented  itself  to  him  that  he  might  be 
the  one  for  whose  benefit  Mr.  Hawke  had  been  sent. 
There  was  something,  too,  in  Badcock's  manner  which 
conveyed  the  idea  that  he  could  say  more  if  he  chose,  but 
had  been  enjoined  to  silence. 

On  reaching  Dawson's  rooms,  he  found  his  friend  in 


254         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

raptures  over  the  discourse  of  the  preceding  evening. 
Hardly  less  delighted  was  he  with  the  effect  it  had  pro- 
duced on  Ernest.  He  had  always  known,  he  said,  that 
Ernest  would  come  round ;  he  had  been  sure  of  it,  but  he 
had  hardly  expected  the  conversion  to  be  so  sudden. 
Ernest  said  no  more  had  he,  but  now  that  he  saw  his 
duty  so  clearly  he  would  get  ordained  as  soon  as  possible, 
and  take  a  curacy,  even  though  the  doing  so  would  make 
him  have  to  go  down  from  Cambridge  earlier,  which 
would  be  a  great  grief  to  him.  Dawson  applauded  this 
determination,  and  it  was  arranged  that  as  Ernest  was 
still  more  or  less  of  a  weak  brother,  Dawson  should 
take  him,  so  to  speak,  in  spiritual  tow  for  a  while,  and 
strengthen  and  confirm  his  faith. 

An  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  therefore  was 
struck  up  between  this  pair  (who  were  in  reality  singu- 
larly ill  assorted),  and  Ernest  set  to  work  to  master  the 
books  on  which  the  Bishop  would  examine  him.  Others 
gradually  joined  them  till  they  formed  a  small  set  or 
church  (for  these  are  the  same  things),  and  the  effect 
of  Mr.  Hawke's  sermon  instead  of  wearing  off  in  a  few 
days,  as  might  have  been  expected,  became  more  and 
more  marked,  so  much  so  that  it  was  necessary  for 
Ernest's  friends  to  hold  him  back  rather  than  urge  him 
on,  for  he  seemed  likely  to  develop — as  indeed  he  did 
for  a  time — into  a  religious  enthusiast. 

In  one  matter  only  did  he  openly  backslide.  He  had, 
as  I  said  above,  locked  up  his  pipes  and  tobacco,  so 
that  he  might  not  be  tempted  to  use  them.  All  day  long 
on  the  day  after  Mr.  Hawke's  sermon  he  let  them  lie  in 
his  portmanteau  bravely;  but  this  was  not  very  difficult, 
as  he  had  for  some  time  given  up  smoking  till  after  hall. 
After  hall  this  day  he  did  not  smoke  till  chapel  time,  and 
then  went  to  chapel  in  self-defence.  When  he  returned 
he  determined  to  look  at  the  matter  from  a  common  sense 
point  of  view.  On  this  he  saw  that,  provided  tobacco 
did  not  injure  his  health — and  he  really  could  not  see 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         255 

that  it  did — it  stood  much  on  the  same  footing  as  tea  or 
coffee. 

Tobacco  had  nowhere  been  forbidden  in  the  Bible,  but 
then  it  had  not  yet  been  discovered,  and  had  probably 
only  escaped  proscription  for  this  reason.  We  can  con- 
ceive of  St.  Paul  or  even  our  Lord  Himself  as  drinking 
a  cup  of  tea,  but  we  cannot  imagine  either  of  them  as 
smoking  a  cigarette  or  a  churchwarden.  Ernest  could 
not  deny  this,  and  admitted  that  Paul  would  almost  cer- 
tainly have  condemned  tobacco  in  good  round  terms  if 
he  had  known  of  its  existence.  Was  it  not  then  taking 
rather  a  mean  advantage  of  the  Apostle  to  stand  on  his 
not  having  actually  forbidden  it?  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  possible  that  God  knew  Paul  would  have  forbid- 
den smoking,  and  had  purposely  arranged  the  discovery 
of  tobacco  for  a  period  at  which  Paul  should  be  no  longer 
living.  This  might  seem  rather  hard  on  Paul,  consider- 
ing all  he  had  done  for  Christianity,  but  it  would  be  made 
up  to  him  in  other  ways. 

These  reflections  satisfied  Ernest  that  on  the  whole 
he  had  better  smoke,  so  he  sneaked  to  his  portmanteau 
and  brought  out  his  pipes  and  tobacco  again.  There 
should  be  moderation,  he  felt,  in  all  things,  even  in  vir- 
tue; so  for  that  night  he  smoked  immoderately.  It  was 
a  pity,  however,  that  he  had  bragged  to  Dawson  about 
giving  up  smoking.  The  pipes  had  better  be  kept  in  a 
cupboard  for  a  week  or  two,  till  in  other  and  easier 
respects  Ernest  should  have  proved  his  steadfastness. 
Then  they  might  steal  out  again  little  by  little — and  so 
they  did. 

Ernest  now  wrote  home  a  letter  couched  in  a  vein 
different  from  his  ordinary  ones.  His  letters  were 
usually  all  common  form  and  padding,  for  as  I  have  al- 
ready explained,  if  he  wrote  about  anything  that  really 
interested  him,  his  mother  always  wanted  to  know  more 
and  more  about  it — every  fresh  answer  being  as  the  lop- 
ping off  of  a  hydra's  head  and  giving  birth  to  half-a- 


256         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

dozen  or  more  new  questions — but  in  the  end  it  came 
invariably  to  the  same  result,  namely,  that  he  ought  to 
have  done  something  else,  or  ought  not  to  go  on  doing 
as  he  proposed.  Now,  however,  there  was  a  new  de- 
parture, and  for  the  thousandth  time  he  concluded  that 
he  was  about  to  take  a  course  of  which  his  father  and 
mother  would  approve,  and  in  which  they  would  be 
interested,  so  that  at  last  he  and  they  might  get  on  more 
sympathetically  than  heretofore.  He  therefore  wrote  a 
gushing,  impulsive  letter,  which  afforded  much  amuse- 
ment to  myself  as  I  read  it,  but  which  is  too  long  for 
reproduction.  One  passage  ran :  "I  am  now  going 
towards  Christ ;  the  greater  number  of  my  college  friends 
are,  I  fear,  going  away  from  Him;  we  must  pray  for 
them  that  they  may  find  the  peace  that  is  in  Christ  even 
as  I  have  myself  found  it."  Ernest  covered  his  face 
with  his  hands  for  shame  as  he  read  this  extract  from 
the  bundle  of  letters  he  had  put  into  my  hands — they 
had  been  returned  to  him  by  his  father  on  his  mother's 
death,  his  mother  having  carefully  preserved  them. 
"Shall  I  cut  it  out?"  said  I.  "I  will,  if  you  like." 
"Certainly  not,"  he  answered,  "and  if  good-natured 
friends  have  kept  more  records  of  my  follies,  pick  out 
any  plums  that  may  amuse  the  reader,  and  let  him  have 
his  laugh  over  them."  But  fancy  what  effect  a  letter  like 
this — so  unled  up  to — must  have  produced  at  Battersby ! 
Even  Christina  refrained  from  ecstasy  over  her  son's 
having  discovered  the  power  of  Christ's  word,  while 
Theobald  was  frightened  out  of  his  wits.  It  was  well  his 
son  was  not  going  to  have  any  doubts  or  difficulties,  and 
that  he  would  be  ordained  without  making  a  fuss  over 
it,  but  he  smelt  mischief  in  this  sudden  conversion  of  one 
who  had  never  yet  shown  any  inclination  towards  re- 
ligion. He  hated  people  who  did  not  know  where  to 
stop.  Ernest  was  always  so  outre  and  strange;  there 
was  never  any  knowing  what  he  would  do  next,  except 
that  it  would  be  something  unusual  and  silly.  If  he  was 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         257 

to  get  the  bit  between  his  teeth  after  he  had  got  or- 
dained and  bought  his  living,  he  would  play  more  pranks 
than  ever  he,  Theobald,  had  done.  The  fact,  doubtless, 
of  his  being  ordained  and  having  bought  a  living  would 
go  a  long  way  to  steady  him,  and  if  he  married,  his  wife 
must  see  to  the  rest;  this  was  his  only  chance  and,  to 
do  justice  to  his  sagacity,  Theobald  in  his  heart  did  not 
think  very  highly  of  it. 

When  Ernest  came  down  to  Battersby  in  June,  he 
imprudently  tried  to  open  up  a  more  unreserved  com- 
munication with  his  father  than  was  his  wont.  The  first 
of  Ernest's  snipe-like  flights  on  being  flushed  by  Mr. 
Hawke's  sermon  was  in  the  direction  of  ultra-Evangeli- 
calism. Theobald  himself  had  been  much  more  Low 
than  High  Church.  This  was  the  normal  development 
of  the  country  clergyman  during  the  first  years  of  his 
clerical  life,  between,  we  will  say,  the  years  1825  to 
1850;  but  he  was  not  prepared  for  the  almost  contempt 
with  which  Ernest  now  regarded  the  doctrines  of  baptis- 
mal regeneration  and  priestly  absolution  (Hoity-toity,  in- 
deed, what  business  had  he  with  such  questions?),  nor 
for  his  desire  to  find  some  means  of  reconciling  Meth- 
odism and  the  Church.  Theobald  hated  the  Church  of 
Rome,  but  he  hated  dissenters  too,  for  he  found  them 
as  a  general  rule  troublesome  people  to  deal  with;  he 
always  found  people  who  did  not  agree  with  him  trouble- 
some to  deal  with:  besides,  they  set  up  for  knowing  as 
much  as  he  did;  nevertheless  if  he  had  been  let  alone 
he  would  have  leaned  towards  them  rather  than  towards 
the  High  Church  party.  The  neighbouring  clergy,  how- 
ever, would  not  let  him  alone.  One  by  one  they  had  come 
under  the  influence,  directly  or  indirectly,  of  the  Oxford 
movement  which  had  begun  twenty  years  earlier.  It 
was  surprising  how  many  practices  he  now  tolerated 
which  in  his  youth  he  would  have  considered  Popish ; 
he  knew  very  well  therefore  which  way  things  were 
going  in  Church  matters,  and  saw  that  as  usual  Ernest 


258         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

was  setting  himself  the  other  way.  The  opportunity  for 
telling  his  son  that  he  was  a  fool  was  too  favourable  not 
to  be  embraced,  and  Theobald  was  not  slow  to  embrace 
it.  Ernest  was  annoyed  and  surprised,  for  had  not  his 
father  and  mother  been  wanting  him  to  be  more  religious 
all  his  life?  Now  that  he  had  become  so  they  were  still 
not  satisfied.  He  said  to  himself  that  a  prophet  was  not 
without  honour  save  in  his  own  country,  but  he  had 
been  lately — or  rather  until  lately — getting  into  an  odious 
habit  of  turning  proverbs  upside  down,  and  it  occurred 
to  him  that  a  country  is  sometimes  not  without  honour 
save  for  its  own  prophet.  Then  he  laughed,  and  for  the 
rest  of  the  day  felt  more  as  he  used  to  feel  before  he  had 
heard  Mr.  Hawke's  sermon. 

He  returned  to  Cambridge  for  the  Long  Vacation  of 
1858 — none  too  soon,  for  he  had  to  go  in  for  the  Volun- 
tary Theological  Examination,  which  bishops  were  now 
beginning  to  insist  upon.  He  imagined  all  the  time  he 
was  reading  that  he  was  storing  himself  with  the  knowl- 
edge that  would  best  fit  him  for  the  work  he  had  taken 
in  hand.  In  truth,  he  was  cramming  for  a  pass.  In  due 
time  he  did  pass — creditably,  and  was  ordained  Deacon 
with  half-a-dozen  others  of  his  friends  in  the  autumn  of 
1858.  He  was  then  just  twenty-three  years  old. 


CHAPTER   LI 

ERNEST  had  been  ordained  to  a  curacy  in  one  of  the 
central  parts  of  London.  He  hardly  knew  anything  of 
London  yet,  but  his  instincts  drew  him  thither.  The 
day  after  he  was  ordained  he  entered  upon  his  duties — 
feeling  much  as  his  father  had  done  when  he  found 
himself  boxed  up  in  the  carriage  with  Christina  on  the 
morning  of  his  marriage.  Before  the  first  three  days 
were  over,  he  became  aware  that  the  light  of  the  happi- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         259 

ness  which  he  had  known  during  his  four  years  at 
Cambridge  had  been  extinguished,  and  he  was  appalled 
by  the  irrevocable  nature  of  the  step  which  he  now  felt 
that  he  had  taken  much  too  hurriedly. 

The  most  charitable  excuse  that  I  can  make  for  the 
vagaries  which  it  will  now  be  my  duty  to  chronicle  is 
that  the  shock  of  change  consequent  upon  his  becoming 
suddenly  religious,  being  ordained  and  leaving  Cam- 
bridge, had  been  too  much  for  my  hero,  and  had  for  the 
time  thrown  him  off  an  equilibrium  which  was  yet  little 
supported  by  experience,  and  therefore  as  a  matter  of 
course  unstable. 

Everyone  has  a  mass  of  bad  work  in  him  which  he 
will  have  to  work  off  and  get  rid  of  before  he  can  do 
better — and  indeed,  the  more  lasting  a  man's  ultimate 
good  work  is,  the  more  sure  he  is  to  pass  through  a 
time,  and  perhaps  a  very  long  one,  in  which  there  seems 
very  little  hope  for  him  at  all.  We  must  all  sow  our 
spiritual  wild  oats.  The  fault  I  feel  personally  disposed 
to  find  with  my  godson  is  not  that  he  had  wild  oats  to 
sow,  but  that  they  were  such  an  exceedingly  tame  and 
uninteresting  crop.  The  sense  of  humour  and  tendency 
to  think  for  himself,  of  which  till  a  few  months  pre- 
viously he  had  been  showing  fair  promise,  were  nipped 
as  though  by  a  late  frost,  while  his  earlier  habit  of  taking 
on  trust  everything  that  was  told  him  by  those  in  au- 
thority, and  following  everything  out  to  the  bitter  end, 
no  matter  how  preposterous,  returned  with  redoubled 
strength.  I  suppose  this  was  what  might  have  been  ex- 
pected from  anyone  placed  as  Ernest  now  was,  especially 
when  his  antecedents  are  remembered,  but  it  surprised 
and  disappointed  some  of  his  cooler-headed  Cambridge 
friends  who  had  begun  to  think  well  of  his  ability.  To 
himself  it  seemed  that  religion  was  incompatible  with 
half  measures,  or  even  with  compromise.  Circumstances 
had  led  to  his  being  ordained;  for  the  moment  he  was 
sorry  they  had,  but  he  had  done  it  and  must  go  through 


with  it.  He  therefore  set  himself  to  find  out  what  was 
expected  of  him,  and  to  act  accordingly. 

His  rector  was  a  moderate  High  Churchman  of  no 
very  pronounced  views — an  elderly  man  who  had  had  too 
many  curates  not  to  have  long  since  found  out  that  the 
connection  between  rector  and  curate,  like  that  between 
employer  and  employed  in  every  other  walk  of  life,  was 
a  mere  matter  of  business.  He  had  now  two  curates,  of 
whom  Ernest  was  the  junior;  the  senior  curate  was 
named  Pryer,  and  when  this  gentleman  made  advances, 
as  he  presently  did,  Ernest  in  his  forlorn  state  was  de- 
lighted to  meet  them. 

Pryer  was  about  twenty-eight  years  old.  He  had 
been  at  Eton  and  at  Oxford.  He  was  tall,  and  passed 
generally  for  good-looking;  I  only  saw  him  once  for 
about  five  minutes,  and  then  thought  him  odious  both  in 
manners  and  appearance.  Perhaps  it  was  because  he 
caught  me  up  in  a  way  I  did  not  like.  I  had  quoted 
Shakespeare  for  lack  of  something  better  to  fill  up  a 
sentence — and  had  said  that  one  touch  of  nature  made 
the  whole  world  kin.  "Ah,"  said  Pryer,  in  a  bold,  brazen 
way  which  displeased  me,  "but  one  touch  of  the  un- 
natural makes  it  more  kindred  still,"  and  he  gave  me 
a  look  as  though  he  thought  me  an  old  bore  and  did  not 
care  two  straws  whether  I  was  shocked  or  not.  Nat- 
urally enough,  after  this  I  did  not  like  him. 

This,  however,  is  anticipating,  for  it  was  not  till  Ernest 
had  been  three  or  four  months  in  London  that  I  hap- 
pened to  meet  his  fellow-curate,  and  I  must  deal  here 
rather  with  the  effect  he  produced  upon  my  godson  than 
upon  myself.  Besides  being  what  was  generally  con- 
sidered good-looking,  he  was  faultless  in  his  get-up,  and 
altogether  the  kind  of  man  whom  Ernest  was  sure  to  be 
afraid  of  and  yet  be  taken  in  by.  The  style  of  his  dress 
was  very  High  Church,  and  his  acquaintances  were  ex- 
clusively of  the  extreme  High  Church  party,  but  he  kept 
his  views  a  good  deal  in  the  background  in  his  rector's 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         261 

presence,  and  that  gentleman,  though  he  looked  askance 
on  some  of  Fryer's  friends,  had  no  such  ground  of  com- 
plaint against  him  as  to  make  him  sever  the  connection. 
Pryer,  too,  was  popular  in  the  pulpit,  and,  take  him  all 
round,  it  was  probable  that  many  worse  curates  -would 
be  found  for  one  better.  When  Pryer  called  on  my  hero, 
as  soon  as  the  two  were  alone  together,  he  eyed  him  all 
over  with  a  quick,  penetrating  glance  and  seemed  not  dis- 
satisfied with  the  result — for  I  must  say  here  that  Ernest 
had  improved  in  personal  appearance  under  the  more 
genial  treatment  he  had  received  at  Cambridge.  Pryer, 
in  fact,  approved  of  him  sufficiently  to  treat  him  civilly, 
and  Ernest  was  immediately  won  by  anyone  who  did 
this.  It  was  not  long  before  he  discovered  that  the  High 
Church  party,  and  even  Rome  itself,  had  more  to  say 
for  themselves  than  he  had  thought.  This  was  his  first 
snipe-like  change  of  flight. 

Pryer  introduced  him  to  several  of  his  friends.  They 
were  all  of  them  young  clergymen,  belonging  as  I  have 
said  to  the  highest  of  the  High  Church  school,  but  Ernest 
was  surprised  to  find  how  much  they  resembled  other 
people  when  among  themselves.  This  was  a  shock  to 
him;  it  was  ere  long  a  still  greater  one  to  find  that  cer- 
tain thoughts  which  he  had  warred  against  as  fatal  to  his 
soul,  and  which  he  had  imagined  he  should  lose  once  for 
all  on  ordination,  were  still  as  troublesome  to  him  as 
they  had  been ;  he  also  saw  plainly  enough  that  the  young 
gentlemen  who  formed  the  circle  of  Pryer's  friends  were 
in  much  the  same  unhappy  predicament  as  himself. 

This  was  deplorable.  The  only  way  out  of  it  that 
Ernest  could  see  was  that  he  should  get  married  at 
once.  But  then  he  did  not  know  any  one  whom  he 
wanted  to  marry.  He  did  not  know  any  woman,  in  fact, 
whom  he  would  not  rather  die  than  marry.  It  had  been 
one  of  Theobald's  and  Christina's  main  objects  to  keep 
him  out  of  the  way  of  women,  and  they  had  so  far  suc- 
ceeded that  women  had  become  to  him  mysterious,  in- 


262         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

scrutable  objects  to  be  tolerated  when  it  was  impossible 
to  avoid  them,  but  never  to  be  sought  out  or  encouraged. 
As  for  any  man  loving,  or  even  being  at  all  fond  of 
any  woman,  he  supposed  it  was  so,  but  he  believed  the 
greater  number  of  those  who  professed  such  sentiments 
were  liars.  Now,  however,  it  was  clear  that  he  had 
hoped  against  hope  too  long,  and  that  the  only  thing  to 
do  was  to  go  and  ask  the  first  woman  who  would  listen 
to  him  to  come  and  be  married  to  him  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. 

He  broached  this  to  Pryer,  and  was  surprised  to  find 
that  this  gentleman,  though  attentive  to  such  members  of 
his  flock  as  were  young  and  good-looking,  was  strongly 
in  favour  of  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  as  indeed  were 
the  other  demure  young  clerics  to  whom  Pryer  had  in- 
troduced Ernest. 


CHAPTER   LII 

"You  know,  my  dear  Pontifex,"  said  Pryer  to  him,  some 
few  weeks  after  Ernest  had  become  acquainted  with  him, 
when  the  two  were  taking  a  constitutional  one  day  in 
Kensington  Gardens,  "You  know,  my  dear  Pontifex, 
it  is  all  very  well  to  quarrel  with  Rome,  but  Rome  has 
reduced  the  treatment  of  the  human  soul  to  a  science, 
while  our  own  Church,  though  so  much  purer  in  many 
respects,  has  no  organised  system  either  of  diagnosis  or 
pathology — I  mean,  of  course,  spiritual  diagnosis  and 
spiritual  pathology.  Our  Church  does  not  prescribe 
remedies  upon  any  settled  system,  and,  what  is  still 
worse,  even  when  her  physicians  have  according  to  their 
lights  ascertained  the  disease  and  pointed  out  the  remedy, 
she  has  no  discipline  which  will  ensure  its  being  actually 
applied.  If  our  patients  do  not  choose  to  do  as  we  tell 
them,  we  cannot  make  them.  Perhaps  really  under  all 
the  circumstances  this  is  as  well,  for  we  are  spiritually 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         263 

mere  horse  doctors  as  compared  with  the  Roman  priest- 
hood, nor  can  we  hope  to  make  much  headway  against 
the  sin  and  misery  that  surround  us,  till  we  return  in 
some  respects  to  the  practice  of  our  forefathers  and  of 
the  greater  part  of  Christendom." 

Ernest  asked  in  what  respects  it  was  that  his  friend 
desired  a  return  to  the  practice  of  our  forefathers. 

"Why,  my  dear  fellow,  can  you  really  be  ignorant  ?  It 
is  just  this,  either  the  priest  is  indeed  a  spiritual  guide, 
as  being  able  to  show  people  how  they  ought  to  live  better 
than  they  can  find  out  for  themselves,  or  he  is  nothing 
at  all — he  has  no  raison  d'etre.  If  the  priest  is  not  as 
much  a  healer  and  director  of  men's  souls  as  a  physi- 
cian is  of  their  bodies,  what  is  he?  The  history  of  all 
ages  has  shown — and  surely  you  must  know  this  as  well 
as  I  do — that  as  men  cannot  cure  the  bodies  of  their 
patients  if  they  have  not  been  properly  trained  in  hos- 
pitals under  skilled  teachers,  so  neither  can  souls  be 
cured  of  their  more  hidden  ailments  without  the  help 
of  men  who  are  skilled  in  soul-craft — or  in  other  words, 
of  priests.  What  do  one  half  of  our  formularies  and 
rubrics  mean  if  not  this?  How  in  the  name  of  all  that 
is  reasonable  can  we  find  out  the  exact  nature  of  a 
spiritual  malady,  unless  we  have  had  experience  of  other 
similar  cases?  How  can  we  get  this  without  express 
training?  At  present  we  have  to  begin  all  experiments 
for  ourselves,  without  profiting  by  the  organised  experi- 
ence of  our  predecessors,  inasmuch  as  that  experience 
is  never  organised  and  co-ordinated  at  all.  At  the  outset, 
therefore,  each  one  of  us  must  ruin  many  souls  which 
could  be  saved  by  knowledge  of  a  few  elementary  prin- 
ciples." 

Ernest  was  very  much  impressed. 

"As  for  men  curing  themselves,"  continued  Pryer, 
"they  can  no  more  cure  their  own  souls  than  they  can 
cure  their  own  bodies,  or  manage  their  own  law  affairs. 
In  these  two  last  cases  they  see  the  folly  of  meddling 


264         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

with  their  own  cases  clearly  enough,  and  go  to  a  profes- 
sional adviser  as  a  matter  of  course ;  surely  a  man's  soul 
is  at  once  a  more  difficult  and  intricate  matter  to  treat, 
and  at  the  same  time  it  is  more  important  to  him  that 
it  should  be  treated  rightly  than  that  either  his  body  or 
his  money  should  be  so.  What  are  we  to  think  of  the 
practice  of  a  Church  which  encourages  people  to  rely  on 
unprofessional  advice  in  matters  affecting  their  eternal 
welfare,  when  they  would  not  think  of  jeopardising  their 
worldly  affairs  by  such  insane  conduct?" 

Ernest  could  see  no  weak  place  in  this.  These  ideas 
had  crossed  his  own  mind  vaguely  before  now,  but  he 
had  never  laid  hold  of  them  or  set  them  in  an  orderly 
manner  before  himself.  Nor  was  he  quick  at  detecting 
false  analogies  and  the  misuse  of  metaphors ;  in  fact  he 
was  a  mere  child  in  the  hands  of  his  fellow  curate. 

"And  what,"  resumed  Pryer,  "does  all  this  point  to? 
Firstly,  to  the  duty  of  confession — the  outcry  against 
which  is  absurd  as  an  outcry  would  be  against  dissection 
as  part  of  the  training  of  medical  students.  Granted 
these  young  men  must  see  and  do  a  great  deal  we  do  not 
ourselves  like  even  to  think  of,  but  they  should  adopt 
some  other  profession  unless  they  are  prepared  for  this ; 
they  may  even  get  inoculated  with  poison  from  a  dead 
body  and  lose  their  lives,  but  they  must  stand  their 
chance.  So  if  we  aspire  to  be  priests  in  deed  as  well 
as  name,  we  must  familiarise  ourselves  with  the  minutest 
and  most  repulsive  details  of  all  kinds  of  sin,  so  that 
we  may  recognise  it  in  all  its  stages.  Some  of  us  must 
doubtless  perish  spiritually  in  such  investigations.  We 
cannot  help  it;  all  science  must  have  its  martyrs,  and 
none  of  these  will  deserve  better  of  humanity  than  those 
who  have  fallen  in  the  pursuit  of  spiritual  pathology." 

Ernest  grew  more  and  more  interested,  but  in  the 
meekness  of  his  soul  said  nothing. 

"I  do  not  desire  this  martyrdom  for  myself,"  con- 
tinued the  other;  "on  the  contrary  I  will  avoid  it  to  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         265 

very  utmost  of  my  power,  but  if  it  be  God's  will  that  I 
should  fall  while  studying  what  I  believe  most  calculated 
to  advance  his  glory — then,  I  say,  not  my  will,  O  Lord, 
but  thine  be  done." 

This  was  too  much  even  for  Ernest.  "I  heard  of  an 
Irishwoman  once,"  he  said,  with  a  smile,  "who  said  she 
was  a  martyr  to  the  drink." 

'  "And  so  she  was,"  rejoined  Pryer  with  warmth;  and 
he  went  on  to  show  that  this  good  woman  was  an  experi- 
mentalist whose  experiment,  though  disastrous  in  its  ef- 
fects upon  herself,  was  pregnant  with  instruction  to  other 
people.  She  was  thus  a  true  martyr  or  witness  to  the 
frightful  consequences  of  intemperance,  to  the  saving, 
doubtless,  of  many  who  but  for  her  martyrdom  would 
have  taken  to  drinking.  She  was  one  of  a  forlorn  hope 
whose  failure  to  take  a  certain  position  went  to  the  prov- 
ing it  to  be  impregnable  and  therefore  to  the  abandon- 
ment of  all  attempt  to  take  it.  This  was  almost  as  great 
a  gain  to  mankind  as  the  actual  taking  of  the  position 
would  have  been. 

"Besides,"  he  added  more  hurriedly,  "the  limits  of 
vice  and  virtue  are  wretchedly  ill-defined.  Half  the  vices 
which  the  world  condemns  most  loudly  have  seeds  of 
good  in  them  and  require  moderate  use  rather  than 
total  abstinence." 

Ernest  asked  timidly  for  an  instance. 

"No,  no,"  said  Pryer,  "I  will  give  you  no  instance,  but 
I  will  give  you  a  formula  that  shall  embrace  all  instances. 
It  is  this,  that  no  practice  is  entirely  vicious  which  has 
not  been  extinguished  among  the  comeliest,  most  vigor- 
ous, and  most  cultivated  races  of  mankind  in  spite  of 
centuries  of  endeavour  to  extirpate  it.  If  a  vice  in  spite 
of  such  efforts  can  still  hold  its  own  among  the  most 
polished  nations,  it  must  be  founded  on  some  immutable 
truth  or  fact  in  human  nature,  and  must  have  some  com- 
pensatory advantage  which  we  cannot  afford  altogether 
to  dispense  with." 


266         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

"But,"  said  Ernest  timidly,  "is  not  this  virtually  doing 
away  with  all  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  and 
leaving  people  without  any  moral  guide  whatever?" 

"Not  the  people,"  was  the  answer :  "it  must  be  our 
care  to  be  guides  to  these,  for  they  are  and  always  will 
be  incapable  of  guiding  themselves  sufficiently.  We 
should  tell  them  what  they  must  do,  and  in  an  ideal  state 
of  things  should  be  able  to  enforce  their  doing  it:  per- 
haps when  we  are  better  instructed  the  ideal  state  may 
come  about ;  nothing  will  so  advance  it  as  greater  knowl- 
edge of  spiritual  pathology  on  our  own  part.  For  this, 
three  things  are  necessary;  firstly,  absolute  freedom  in 
experiment  for  us  the  clergy;  secondly,  absolute  knowl- 
edge of  what  the  laity  think  and  do,  and  of  what  thoughts 
and  actions  result  in  what  spiritual  conditions;  and 
thirdly,  a  compacter  organisation  among  ourselves. 

"If  we  are  to  do  any  good  we  must  be  a  closely  united 
body,  and  must  be  sharply  divided  from  the  laity.  Also 
we  must  be  free  from  those  ties  which  a  wife  and  chil- 
dren involve.  I  can  hardly  express  the  horror  with 
which  I  am  filled  by  seeing  English  priests  living  in  what 
I  can  only  designate  as  'open  matrimony.'  It  is  deplor- 
able. The  priest  must  be  absolutely  sexless — if  not  in 
practice,  yet  at  any  rate  in  theory,  absolutely — and  that, 
too,  by  a  theory  so  universally  accepted  that  none  shall 
venture  to  dispute  it." 

"But,"  said  Ernest,  "has  not  the  Bible  already  told 
people  what  they  ought  and  ought  not  to  do,  and  is  it 
not  enough  for  us  to  insist  on  what  can  be  found  here, 
and  let  the  rest  alone?" 

"If  you  begin  with  the  Bible,"  was  the  rejoinder, 
"you  are  three  parts  gone  on  the  road  to  infidelity,  and 
will  go  the  other  part  before  you  know  where  you  are. 
The  Bible  is  not  without  its  value  to  us  the  clergy,  but 
for  the  laity  it  is  a  stumbling-block  which  cannot  be 
taken  out  of  their  way  too  soon  or  too  completely.  Of 
course,  I  mean  on  the  supposition  that  they  read  it, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         267 

which,  happily,  they  seldom  do.  If  people  read  the  Bible 
as  the  ordinary  British  churchman  or  churchwoman  reads 
it,  it  is  harmless  enough;  but  if  they  read  it  with  any 
care — which  we  should  assume  they  will  if  we  give  it 
them  at  all — it  is  fatal  to  them." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  said  Ernest,  more  and  more 
astonished,  but  more  and  more  feeling  that  he  was  at 
least  in  the  hands  of  a  man  who  had  definite  ideas. 

"Your  question  shows  me  that  you  have  never  read 
your  Bible.  A  more  unreliable  book  was  never  put  upon 
paper.  Take  my  advice  and  don't  read  it,  not  till  you 
are  a  few  years  older,  and  may  do  so  safely." 

"But  surely  you  believe  the  Bible  when  it  tells  you  of 
such  things  as  that  Christ  died  and  rose  from  the  dead? 
Surely  you  believe  this?"  said  Ernest,  quite  prepared  to 
be  told  that  Pryer  believed  nothing  of  the  kind. 

"I  do  not  believe  it,  I  know  it." 

"But  how — if  the  testimony  of  the  Bible  fails?" 

"On  that  of  the  living  voice  of  the  Church,  which  I 
know  to  be  infallible  and  to  be  informed  of  Christ  him- 
self." 

CHAPTER    LIII 

THE  foregoing  conversation  and  others  like  it  made  a 
deep  impression  upon  my  hero.  If  next  day  he  had 
taken  a  walk  with  Mr.  Hawke,  and  heard  what  he  had  to 
say  on  the  other  side,  he  would  have  been  just  as  much 
struck,  and  as  ready  to  fling  off  what  Pryer  had  told  him, 
as  he  now  was  to  throw  aside  all  he  had  ever  heard  from 
anyone  except  Pryer;  but  there  was  no  Mr.  Hawke  at 
hand,  so  Pryer  had  everything  his  own  way. 

Embryo  minds,  like  embryo  bodies,  pass  through  a 
number  of  strange  metamorphoses  before  they  adopt 
their  final  shape.  It  is  no  more  to  be  wondered  at  that 
one  who  is  going  to  turn  out  a  Roman  Catholic,  should 
have  passed  through  the  stages  of  being  first  a  Metho- 


268         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

dist,  and  then  a  free  thinker,  than  that  a  man  should  at 
some  former  time  have  been  a  mere  cell,  and  later  on  an 
invertebrate  animal.  Ernest,  however,  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  know  this ;  embryos  never  do.  Embryos  think 
with  each  stage  of  their  development  that  they  have  now 
reached  the  only  condition  which  really  suits  them. 
This,  they  say,  must  certainly  be  their  last,  inasmuch  as 
its  close  will  be  so  great  a  shock  that  nothing  can  survive 
it.  Every  change  is  a  shock ;  every  shock  is  a  pro  tanto 
death.  What  we  call  death  is  only  a  shock  great  enough 
to  destroy  our  power  to  recognise  a  past  and  a  present 
as  resembling  one  another.  It  is  the  making  us  con- 
sider the  points  of  difference  between  our  present  and 
our  past  greater  than  the  points  of  resemblance,  so  that 
we  can  no  longer  call  the  former  of  these  two  in  any 
proper  sense  a  continuation  of  the  second,  but  find  it 
less  trouble  to  think  of  it  as  something  that  we  choose 
to  call  new. 

But,  to  let  this  pass,  it  was  clear  that  spiritual  path- 
ology (I  confess  that  I  do  not  know  myself  what  spiritual 
pathology  means — but  Pryer  and  Ernest  doubtless  did) 
was  the  great  desideratum  of  the  age.  It  seemed  to  Er- 
nest that  he  had  made  this  discovery  himself  and  been 
familiar  with  it  all  his  life,  that  he  had  never  known, 
in  fact,  of  anything  else.  He  wrote  long  letters  to  his 
college  friends  expounding  his  views  as  though  he  had 
been  one  of  the  Apostolic  fathers.  As  for  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writers,  he  had  no  patience  with  them.  "Do  oblige 
me,"  I  find  him  writing  to  one  friend,  "by  reading  the 
prophet  Zechariah,  and  giving  me  your  candid  opinion 
upon  him.  He  is  poor  stuff,  full  of  Yankee  bounce;  it 
is  sickening  to  live  in  an  age  when  such  balderdash  can 
be  gravely  admired  whether  as  poetry  or  prophecy." 
This  was  because  Pryer  had  set  him  against  Zechariah. 
I  do  not  know  what  Zechariah  had  done ;  I  should  think 
myself  that  Zechariah  was  a  very  good  prophet ;  perhaps 
it  was  because  he  was  a  Bible  writer,  and  not  a  very 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         269 

prominent  one,  that  Pryer  selected  him  as  one  through 
whom  to  disparage  the  Bible  in  comparison  with  the 
Church. 

To  his  friend  Dawson  I  find  him  saying  a  little  later 
on :  "Pryer  and  I  continue  our  walks,  working  out  each 
other's  thoughts.  At  first  he  used  to  do  all  the  thinking, 
but  I  think  I  am  pretty  well  abreast  of  him  now,  and 
rather  chuckle  at  seeing  that  he  is  already  beginning  to 
modify  some  of  the  views  he  held  most  strongly  when 
I  first  knew  him. 

"Then  I  think  he  was  on  the  high  road  to  Rome ;  now, 
however,  he  seems  to  be  a  good  deal  struck  with  a  sug- 
gestion of  mine  in  which  you,  too,  perhaps  may  be  in- 
terested. You  see  we  must  infuse  new  life  into  the 
Church  somehow ;  we  are  not  holding  our  own  against 
either  Rome  or  infidelity."  (I  may  say  in  passing  that 
I  do  not  believe  Ernest  had  as  yet  ever  seen  an  infidel 
— not  to  speak  to.)  "I  proposed,  therefore,  a  few  days 
back  to  Pryer — and  he  fell  in  eagerly  with  the  proposal 
as  soon  as  he  saw  that  I  had  the  means  of  carrying  it 
out — that  we  should  set  on  foot  a  spiritual  movement 
somewhat  analogous  to  the  Young  England  movement  of 
twenty  years  ago,  the  aim  of  which  shall  be  at  once  to 
outbid  Rome  on  the  one  hand,  and  scepticism  on  the 
other.  For  this  purpose  I  see  nothing  better  than  the 
foundation  of  an  institution  or  college  for  placing  the 
nature  and  treatment  of  sin  on  a  more  scientific  basis  than 
it  rests  at  present.  We  want — to  borrow  a  useful  term 
of  Pryer's — a  College  of  Spiritual  Pathology  where 
young  men"  (I  suppose  Ernest  thought  he  was  no  longer 
young  by  this  time)  "may  study  the  nature  and  treat- 
ment of  the  sins  of  the  soul  as  medical  students  study 
those  of  the  bodies  of  their  patients.  Such  a  college,  as 
you  will  probably  admit,  will  approach  both  Rome  on  the 
one  hand,  and  science  on  the  other — Rome,  as  giving  the 
priesthood  more  skill,  and  therefore  as  paving  the  way 
for  their  obtaining  greater  power,  and  science,  by  recog- 


270         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

nising  that  even  free  thought  has  a  certain  kind  of  value 
in  spiritual  enquiries.  To  this  purpose  Pryer  and  I  have 
resolved  to  devote  ourselves  henceforth  heart  and  soul. 

"Of  course,  my  ideas 'are  still  unshaped,  and  all  will 
depend  upon  the  men  by  whom  the  college  is  first  worked. 
I  am  not  yet  a  priest,  but  Pryer  is,  and  if  I  were  to  start 
the  College,  Pryer  might  take  charge  of  it  for  a  time  and 
I  work  under  him  nominally  as  his  subordinate.  Pryer 
himself  suggested  this.  Is  it  not  generous  of  him? 

"The  worst  of  it  is  that  we  have  not  enough  money ;  I 
have,  it  is  true,  £5000,  but  we  want  at  least  £10,000,  so 
Pryer  says,  before  we  can  start;  when  we  are  fairly 
under  weigh  I  might  live  at  the  college  and  draw  a  salary 
from  the  foundation,  so  that  it  is  all  one,  or  nearly  so, 
whether  I  invest  my  money  in  this  way  or  in  buying  a 
living ;  besides  I  want  very  little ;  it  is  certain  that  I  shall 
never  marry ;  no  clergyman  should  think  of  this,  and  an 
unmarried  man  can  live  on  next  to  nothing.  Still  I  do 
not  see  my  way  to  as  much  money  as  I  want,  and  Pryer 
suggests  that  as  we  can  hardly  earn  more  now  we  must 
get  it  by  a  judicious  series  of  investments.  Pryer  knows 
several  people  who  make  quite  a  handsome  income  out  of 
very  little  or,  indeed,  I  may  say,  nothing  at  all,  by  buying 
things  at  a  place  they  call  the  Stock  Exchange ;  I  don't 
know  much  about  it  yet,  but  Pryer  says  I  should  soon 
learn;  he  thinks,  indeed,  that  I  have  shown  rather  a 
talent  in  this  direction,  and  under  proper  auspices  should 
make  a  very  good  man  of  business.  Others,  of  course, 
and  not  I,  must  decide  this ;  but  a  man  can  do  anything 
if  he  gives  his  mind  to  it,  and  though  I  should  not  care 
about  having  more  money  for  my  own  sake,  I  care  about 
it  very  much  when  I  think  of  the  good  I  could  do  with 
it  by  saving  souls  from  such  horrible  torture  hereafter. 
Why,  if  the  thing  succeeds,  and  I  really  cannot  see  what 
is  to  hinder  it,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  exaggerate  its  im- 
portance, nor  the  proportions  which  it  may  ultimately 
assume,"  etc.,  etc. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         271 

Again  I  asked  Ernest  whether  he  minded  my  printing 
this.  He  winced,  but  said,  "No,  not  if  it  helps  you  to  tell 
your  story :  but  don't  you  think  it  is  too  long  ?" 

I  said  it  would  let  the  reader  see  for  himself  how 
things  were  going  in  half  the  time  that  it  would  take  me 
to  explain  them  to  him. 

"Very  well  then,  keep  it  by  all  means." 

I  continue  turning  over  my  file  of  Ernest's  letters  and 
find  as  follows — 

"Thanks  for  your  last,  in  answer  to  which  I  send  you 
a  rough  copy  of  a  letter  I  sent  to  the  Times  a  day  or  two 
back.  They  did  not  insert  it,  but  it  embodies  pretty  fully 
my  ideas  on  the  parochial  visitation  question,  and  Pryer 
fully  approves  of  the  letter.  Think  it  carefully  over  and 
send  it  back  to  me  when  read,  for  it  is  so  exactly  my 
present  creed  that  I  cannot  afford  to  lose  it. 

"I  should  very  much  like  to  have  a  viva  voce  discussion 
on  these  matters  :  I  can  only  see  for  certain  that  we  have 
suffered  a  dreadful  loss  in  being  no  longer  able  to  excom- 
municate. We  should  excommunicate  rich  and  poor 
alike,  and  pretty  freely  too.  If  this  power  were  restored 
to  us  we  could,  I  think,  soon  put  a  stop  to  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  the  sin  and  misery  with  which  we  are 
surrounded." 

These  letters  were  written  only  a  few  weeks  after 
Ernest  had  been  ordained,  but  they  are  nothing  to  others 
that  he  wrote  a  little  later  on. 

In  his  eagerness  to  regenerate  the  Church  of  England 
(and  through  this  the  universe)  by  the  means  which 
Pryer  had  suggested  to  him,  it  occurred  to  him  to  try 
to  familiarise  himself  with  the  habits  and  thoughts  of 
the  poor  by  going  and  living  among  them.  I  think  he  got 
this  notion  from  Kingsley's  "Alton  Locke,"  which,  High 
Churchman  though  he  for  the  nonce  was,  he  had  de- 
voured as  he  had  devoured  Stanley's  "Life  of  Arnold," 


272         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Dickens's  novels,  and  whatever  other  literary  garbage  of 
the  day  was  most  likely  to  do  him  harm;  at  any  rate  he 
actually  put  his  scheme  into  practice,  and  took  lodgings 
in  Ashpit  Place,  a  small  street  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Drury  Lane  Theatre,  in  a  house  of  which  the  landlady 
was  the  widow  of  a  cabman. 

This  lady  occupied  the  whole  ground  floor.  In  the 
front  kitchen  there  was  a  tinker.  The  back  kitchen  was 
let  to  a  bellows-mender.  On  the  first  floor  came  Ernest, 
with  his  two  rooms  which  he  furnished  comfortably,  for 
one  must  draw  the  line  somewhere.  The  two  upper  floors 
were  parcelled  out  among  four  different  sets  of  lodgers : 
there  was  a  tailor  named  Holt,  a  drunken  fellow  who 
used  to  beat  his  wife  at  night  till  her  screams  woke  the 
house;  above  him  there  was  another  tailor  with  a  wife 
but  no  children;  these  people  were  Wesleyans,  given  to 
drink  but  not  noisy.  The  two  back  rooms  were  held  by 
single  ladies,  who  it  seemed  to  Ernest  must  be  respectably 
connected,  for  well-dressed,  gentlemanly-looking  young 
men  used  to  go  up  and  down  stairs  past  Ernest's  rooms 
to  call  at  any  rate  on  Miss  Snow — Ernest  had  heard  her 
door  slam  after  they  had  passed.  He  thought,  too,  that 
some  of  them  went  up  to  Miss  Maitland's.  Mrs.  Jupp, 
the  landlady,  told  Ernest  that  these  were  brothers  and 
cousins  of  Miss  Snow's,  and  that  she  was  herself  look- 
ing out  for  a  situation  as  a  governess,  but  at  present  had 
an  engagement  as  an  actress  at  the  Drury  Lane  Theatre. 
Ernest  asked  whether  Miss  Maitland  in  the  top  back 
was  also  looking  out  for  a  situation,  and  was  told  she 
was  wanting  an  engagement  as  a  milliner.  He  believed 
whatever  Mrs.  Jupp  told  him. 


CHAPTER   LIV 

THIS  move  on  Ernest's  part  was  variously  commented 
upon  by  his  friends,  the  general  opinion  being  that  it  was 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         273 

just  like  Pontifex,  who  was  sure  to  do  something  un- 
usual wherever  he  went,  but  that  on  the  whole  the  idea 
was  commendable.  Christina  could  not  restrain  herself 
when  on  sounding  her  clerical  neighbours  she  found  them 
inclined  to  applaud  her  son  for  conduct  which  they  ideal- 
ised into  something  much  more  self-denying  than  it  really 
was.  She  did  not  quite  like  his  living  in  such  an  unaristo- 
cratic  neighbourhood;  but  what  he  was  doing  would 
probably  get  into  the  newspapers,  and  then  great  people 
would  take  notice  of  him.  Besides,  it  would  be  very 
cheap;  down  among  these  poor  people  he  could  live  for 
next  to  nothing,  and  might  put  by  a  great  deal  of  his  in- 
come. As  for  temptations,  there  could  be  few  or  none 
in  such  a  place  as  that.  This  argument  about  cheapness 
was  the  one  with  which  she  most  successfully  met  Theo- 
bald, who  grumbled  more  suo  that  he  had  no  sympathy 
with  his  son's  extravagance  and  conceit.  When  Chris- 
tina pointed  out  to  him  that  it  would  be  cheap  he  replied 
that  there  was  something  in  that. 

On  Ernest  himself  the  effect  was  to  confirm  the  good 
opinion  of  himself  which  had  been  growing  upon  him 
ever  since  he  had  begun  to  read  for  orders,  and  to  make 
him  flatter  himself  that  he  was  among  the  few  who  were 
ready  to  give  up  all  for  Christ.  Ere  long  he  began  to 
conceive  of  himself  as  a  man  with  a  mission  and  a  great 
future.  His  lightest  and  most  hastily  formed  opinions 
began  to  be  of  momentous  importance  to  him,  and  he  in- 
flicted them,  as  I  have  already  shown,  on  his  old  friends, 
week  by  week  becoming  more  and  more  entete  with  him- 
self and  his  own  crotchets.  I  should  like  well  enough 
to  draw  a  veil  over  this  part  of  my  hero's  career,  but 
cannot  do  so  without  marring  my  story. 

In  the  spring  of  1859  I  find  him  writing — 

"I  cannot  call  the  visible  Church  Christian  till  its 
fruits  are  Christian,  that  is  until  the  fruits  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  of  England  are  in  conformity,  or 


274         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

something  like  conformity,  with  her  teaching.  I  cor- 
dially agree  with  the  teaching  of  the  Church  of  England 
in  most  respects,  but  she  says  one  thing  and  does  an- 
other, and  until  excommunication — yes,  and  wholesale 
excommunication — be  resorted  to,  I  cannot  call  her  a 
Christian  institution.  I  should  begin  with  our  Rector, 
and  if  I  found  it  necessary  to  follow  him  up  by  excom- 
municating the  Bishop,  I  should  not  flinch  even  from  this. 

"The  present  London  Rectors  are  hopeless  people  to 
deal  with.  My  own  is  one  of  the  best  of  them,  but  the 
moment  Pryer  and  I  show  signs  of  wanting  to  attack 
an  evil  in  a  way  not  recognised  by  routine,  or  of  remedy- 
ing anything  about  which  no  outcry  has  been  made,  we 
are  met  with,  'I  cannot  think  what  you  mean  by  all  this 
disturbance;  nobody  else  among  the  clergy  sees  these 
things,  and  I  have  no  wish  to  be  the  first  to  begin  turn- 
ing everything  topsy-turvy.'  And  then  people  call  him 
a  sensible  man.  I  have  no  patience  with  them.  How- 
ever, we  know  what  we  want,  and,  as  I  wrote  to  Daw- 
son  the  other  day,  have  a  scheme  on  foot  which  will,  I 
think,  fairly  meet  the  requirements  of  the  case.  But 
we  want  more  money,  and  my  first  move  towards  getting 
this  has  not  turned  out  quite  so  satisfactorily  as  Pryer 
and  I  had  hoped ;  we  shall,  however,  I  doubt  not,  retrieve 
it  shortly." 

When  Ernest  came  to  London  he  intended  doing  a 
good  deal  of  house-to-house  visiting,  but  Pryer  had 
talked  him  out  of  this  even  before  he  settled  down  in 
his  new  and  strangely-chosen  apartments.  The  line  he 
now  took  was  that  if  people  wanted  Christ,  they  must 
prove  their  want  by  taking  some  little  trouble,  and  the 
trouble  required  of  them  was  that  they  should  come  and 
seek  him,  Ernest,  out ;  there  he  was  in  the  midst  of  them 
ready  to  teach;  if  people  did  not  choose  to  come  to  him 
it  was  no  fault  of  his. 

"My  great  business  here,"  he  writes  again  to  Dawson, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         275 

"is  to  observe.  I  am  not  doing  much  in  parish  work 
beyond  my  share  of  the  daily  services.  I  have  a  man's 
Bible  Class,  and  a  boy's  Bible  Class,  and  a  good  many 
young  men  and  boys  to  whom  I  give  instruction  one  way 
or  another;  then  there  are  the  Sunday  School  children, 
with  whom  I  fill  my  room  on  a  Sunday  evening  as  full 
as  it  will  hold,  and  let  them  sing  hymns  and  chants.  They 
like  this.  I  do  a  great  deal  of  reading — chiefly  of  books 
which  Pryer  and  I  think  most  likely  to  help;  we  find 
nothing  comparable  to  the  Jesuits.  Pryer  is  a  thorough 
gentleman,  and  an  admirable  man  of  business — no  less 
observant  of  the  things  of  this  world,  in  fact,  than  of  the 
things  above;  by  a  brilliant  coup  he  has  retrieved,  or 
nearly  so,  a  rather  serious  loss  which  threatened  to  delay 
indefinitely  the  execution  of  our  great  scheme.  He  and 
I  daily  gather  fresh  principles.  I  believe  great  things 
are  before  me,  and  am  strong  in  the  hope  of  being  able 
by  and  by  to  effect  much. 

"As  for  you  I  bid  you  Godspeed.  Be  bold  but  logical, 
speculative  but  cautious,  daringly  courageous,  but  prop- 
erly circumspect  withal,"  etc.,  etc. 

I  think  this  may  do  for  the  present. 


CHAPTER   LV 

I  HAD  called  on  Ernest  as  a  matter  of  course  when  he 
first  came  to  London,  but  had  not  seen  him.  I  had  been 
out  when  he  returned  my  call,  so  that  he  had  been  in 
town  for  some  weeks  before  I  actually  saw  him,  which 
I  did  not  very  long  after  he  had  taken  possession  of  his 
new  rooms.  I  liked  his  face,  but  except  for  the  common 
bond  of  music,  in  respect  of  which  our  tastes  were  sin- 
gularly alike,  I  should  hardly  have  known  how  to  get 
on  with  him.  To  do  him  justice  he  did  not  air  any  of 
his  schemes  to  me  until  I  had  drawn  him  out  concerning 


276         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

them.  I,  to  borrow  the  words  of  Ernest's  landlady,  Mrs. 
Jupp,  "am  not  a  very  regular  church-goer" — I  discovered 
upon  cross-examination  that  Mrs.  Jupp  had  been  to 
church  once  when  she  was  churched  for  her  son  Tom 
some  five  and  twenty  years  since,  but  never  either  before 
or  afterwards;  not  even,  I  fear,  to  be  married,  for 
though  she  called  herself  "Mrs."  she  wore  no  wedding 
ring,  and  spoke  of  the  person  who  should  have  been  Mr. 
Jupp  as  "my  poor  dear  boy's  father,"  not  as  "my  hus- 
band." But  to  return.  I  was  vexed  at  Ernest's  having 
been  ordained.  I  was  not  ordained  myself  and  I  did 
not  like  my  friends  to  be  ordained,  nor  did  I  like  having 
to  be  on  my  best  behaviour  and  to  look  as  if  butter 
would  not  melt  in  my  mouth,  and  all  for  a  boy  whom  I 
remembered  when  he  knew  yesterday  and  to-morrow  and 
Tuesday,  but  not  a  day  of  the  week  more — not  even  Sun- 
day itself — and  when  he  said  he  did  not  like  the  kitten 
because  it  had  pins  in  its  toes. 

I  looked  at  him  and  thought  of  his  Aunt  Alethea,  and 
how  fast  the  money  she  had  left  him  was  accumulating ; 
and  it  was  all  to  go  to  this  young  man,  who  would  use  it 
probably  in  the  very  last  ways  with  which  Miss  Pontifex 
would  have  sympathised.  I  was  annoyed.  "She  always 
said,"  I  thought  to  myself,  "that  she  should  make  a  mess 
of  it,  but  I  did  not  think  she  would  have  made  as  great 
a  mess  of  it  as  this."  Then  I  thought  that  perhaps  if 
his  aunt  had  lived  he  would  not  have  been  like  this. 

Ernest  behaved  quite  nicely  to  me  and  I  own  that  the 
fault  was  mine  if  the  conversation  drew  towards  danger- 
ous subjects.  I  was  the  aggressor,  presuming  I  suppose 
upon  my  age  and  long  acquaintance  with  him,  as  giving 
me  a  right  to  make  myself  unpleasant  in  a  quiet  way. 

Then  he  came  out,  and  the  exasperating  part  of  it  was 
that  up  to  a  certain  point  he  was  so  very  right.  Grant 
him  his  premises  and  his  conclusions  were  sound  enough, 
nor  could  I,  seeing  that  he  was  already  ordained,  join 
issue  with  him  about  his  premises  as  I  should  certainly 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         277 

have  done  if  I  had  had  a  chance  of  doing  so  before  he 
had  taken  orders.  The  result  was  that  I  had  to  beat  a 
retreat  and  went  away  not  in  the  best  of  humours.  ^J 
believe  the  truth  was  that  I  liked  Ernest,  and  was  vexed 
at  his  being  a  clergyman,  and  at  a  clergyman  having  so 
much  money  coming  to  him. 

I  talked  a  little  with  Mrs.  Jupp  on  my  way  out.  She 
and  I  had  reckoned  one  another  up  at  first  sight  as  being 
neither  of  us  "very  regular  church-goers,"  and  the  strings 
of  her  tongue  had  been  loosened.  She  said  Ernest  would 
die.  He  was  much  too  good  for  the  world  and  he  looked 
so  sad  "just  like  young  Watkins  of  the  'Crown'  over  the 
way  who  died  a  month  ago,  and  his  poor  dear  skin  was 
white  as  alablaster;  least-ways  they  say  he  shot  hisself. 
They  took  him  from  the  Mortimer,  I  met  them  just  as  I 
was  going  with  my  Rose  to  get  a  pint  o'  four  ale,  and  she 
had  her  arm  in  splints.  She  told  her  sister  she  wanted  to 
go  to  Perry's  to  get  some  wool,  instead  o'  which  it  was 
only  a  stall  to  get  me  a  pint  o'  ale,  bless  her  heart ;  there's 
nobody  else  would  do  that  much  for  poor  old  Jupp,  and 
it's  a  horrid  lie  to  say  she  is  gay ;  not  but  what  I  like  a 
gay  woman,  I  do :  I'd  rather  give  a  gay  woman  half-a- 
crown  than  stand  a  modest  woman  a  pot  o'  beer,  but  I 
don't  want  to  go  associating  with  bad  girls  for  all  that. 
So  they  took  him  from  the  Mortimer ;  they  wouldn't  let 
him  go  home  no  more;  and  he  done  it  that  artful,  you 
know.  His  wife  was  in  the  country  living  with  her 
mother,  and  she  always  spoke  respectful  o'  my  Rose. 
Poor  dear,  I  hope  his  soul  is  in  Heaven.  Well,  sir,  would 
you  believe  it,  there's  that  in  Mr.  Pontifex's  face  which 
is  just  like  young  Watkins;  he  looks  that  worrited  and 
scrunched  up  at  times,  but  it's  never  for  the  same  reason, 
for  he  don't  know  nothing  at  all,  no  more  than  a  unborn 
babe,  no  he  don't ;  why  there's  not  a  monkey  going  about 
London  with  an  Italian  organ  grinder  but  knows  more 
than  Mr.  Pontifex  do.  He  don't  know — well  I  sup- 
pose  " 


278         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Here  a  child  came  in  on  an  errand  from  some  neigh- 
bour and  interrupted  her,  or  I  can  form  no  idea  where  or 
when  she  would  have  ended  her  discourse.  I  seized  the 
opportunity  to  run  away,  but  not  before  I  had  given  her 
five  shillings  and  made  her  write  down  my  address,  for  I 
was  a  little  frightened  by  what  she  said.  I  told  her  if  she 
thought  her  lodger  grew  worse,  she  was  to  come  and 
let  me  know. 

Weeks  went  by  and  I  did  not  see  her  again.  Having 
done  as  much  as  I  had,  I  felt  absolved  from  doing  more, 
and  let  Ernest  alone  as  thinking  that  he  and  I  should 
only  bore  one  another. 

He  had  now  been  ordained  a  little  over  four  months, 
but  these  months  had  not  brought  happiness  or  satis- 
faction with  them.  He  had  lived  in  a  clergyman's  house 
all  his  life,  and  might  have  been  expected  perhaps  to 
have  known  pretty  much  what  being  a  clergyman  was 
like,  and  so  he  did — a  country  clergyman ;  he  had  formed 
an  ideal,  however,  as  regards  what  a  town  clergyman 
could  do,  and  was  trying  in  a  feeble,  tentative  way  to 
realise  it,  but  somehow  or  other  it  always  managed  to 
escape  him. 

He  lived  among  the  poor,  but  he  did  not  find  that  he 
got  to  know  them.  The  idea  that  they  would  come  to 
him  proved  to  be  a  mistaken  one.  He  did  indeed  visit  a 
few  tame  pets  whom  his  rector  desired  him  to  look  after. 
There  was  an  old  man  and  his  wife  who  lived  next  door 
but  one  to  Ernest  himself ;  then  there  was  a  plumber  of 
the  name  of  Chesterfield;  an  aged  lady  of  the  name  of 
Cover,  blind  and  bed-ridden,  who  munched  and  munched 
her  feeble  old  toothless  jaws  as  Ernest  spoke  or  read  to 
her,  but  who  could  do  little  more ;  a  Mr.  Brookes,  a  rag 
and  bottle  merchant  in  Birdsey's  Rents,  in  the  last  stage 
of  dropsy,  and  perhaps  half  a  dozen  or  so  others.  What 
did  it  all  come  to,  when  he  did  go  to  see  them?  The 
plumber  wanted  to  be  flattered,  and  liked  fooling  a  gentle- 
man into  wasting  his  time  by  scratching  his  ears  for  him. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         279 

Mrs.  Cover,  poor  old  woman,  wanted  money;  she  was 
very  good  and  meek,  and  when  Ernest  got  her  a  shilling 
from  Lady  Anne  Jones's  bequest,  she  said  it  was  "small 
but  seasonable,"  and  munched  and  munched  in  gratitude. 
Ernest  sometimes  gave  her  a  little  money  himself,  but 
not,  as  he  says  now,  half  what  he  ought  to  have  given. 

What  could  he  do  else  that  would  have  been  of  the 
smallest  use  to  her?  Nothing  indeed;  but  giving  occa- 
sional half-crowns  to  Mrs.  Cover  was  not  regenerating 
the  universe,  and  Ernest  wanted  nothing  short  of  this. 
The  world  was  all  out  of  joint,  and  instead  of  feeling  it 
to  be  a  cursed  spite  that  he  was  born  to  set  it  right,  he 
thought  he  was  just  the  kind  of  person  that  was  wanted 
for  the  job,  and  was  eager  to  set  to  work,  only  he  did 
not  exactly  know  how  to  begin,  for  the  beginning  he  had 
made  with  Mr.  Chesterfield  and  Mrs.  Cover  did  not 
promise  great  developments. 

Then  poor  Mr.  Brookes — he  suffered  very  much,  ter- 
ribly indeed;  he  was  not  in  want  of  money;  he  wanted 
to  die  and  couldn't,  just  as  we  sometimes  want  to  go 
to  sleep  and  cannot.  He  had  been  a  serious-minded  man, 
and  death  frightened  him  as  it  must  frighten  anyone  who 
believes  that  all  his  most  secret  thoughts  will  be  shortly 
exposed  in  public.  When  I  read  Ernest  the  description  of 
how  his  father  used  to  visit  Mrs.  Thompson  at  Battersby, 
he  coloured  and  said — "That's  just  what  I  used  to  say  to 
Mr.  Brookes."  Ernest  felt  that  his  visits,  so  far  from 
comforting  Mr.  Brookes,  made  him  fear  death  more  and 
more,  but  how  could  he  help  it  ? 

Even  Pryer,  who  had  been  curate  a  couple  of  years, 
did  not  know  personally  more  than  a  couple  of  hundred 
people  in  the  parish  at  the  outside,  and  it  was  only  at 
the  houses  of  very  few  of  these  that  he  ever  visited,  but 
then  Pryer  had  such  a  strong  objection  on  principle  to 
house  visitations.  What  a  drop  in  the  sea  were  those 
with  whom  he  and  Pryer  were  brought  into  direct  com- 
munication in  comparison  with  those  whom  he  must 


280         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

reach  and  move  if  he  were  to  produce  much  effect  of 
any  kind,  one  way  or  the  other.  Why  there  were  be- 
tween fifteen  and  twenty  thousand  poor  in  the  parish,  of 
whom  but  the  merest  fraction  ever  attended  a  place  of 
worship.  Some  few  went  to  dissenting  chapels,  a  few 
were  Roman  Catholics ;  by  far  the  greater  number,  how- 
ever, were  practically  infidels,  if  not  actively  hostile,  at 
any  rate  indifferent  to  religion,  while  many  were  avowed 
Atheists — admirers  of  Tom  Paine,  of  whom  he  now 
heard  for  the  first  time ;  but  he  never  met  and  conversed 
with  any  of  these. 

Was  he  really  doing  everything  that  could  be  expected 
of  him?  It  was  all  very  well  to  say  that  he  was  doing 
as  much  as  other  young  clergymen  did ;  that  was  not  the 
kind  of  answer  which  Jesus  Christ  was  likely  to  accept ; 
why,  the  Pharisees  themselves  in  all  probability  did  as 
much  as  the  other  Pharisees  did.  What  he  should  do 
was  to  go  into  the  highways  and  byways,  and  compel 
people  to  come  in.  Was  he  doing  this?  Or  were  not 
they  rather  compelling  him  to  keep  out — outside  their 
doors  at  any  rate?  He  began  to  have  an  uneasy  feeling 
as  though  ere  long,  unless  he  kept  a  sharp  lookout,  he 
should  drift  into  being  a  sham. 

True,  all  would  be  changed  as  soon  as  he  could  en- 
dow the  College  for  Spiritual  Pathology;  matters,  how- 
ever, had  not  gone  too  well  with  "the  things  that  people 
bought  in  the  place  that  was  called  the  Stock  Exchange." 
In  order  to  get  on  faster,  it  had  been  arranged  that 
Ernest  should  buy  more  of  these  things  than  he  could 
pay  for,  with  the  idea  that  in  a  few  weeks,  or  even  days, 
they  would  be  much  higher  in  value,  and  he  could  sell 
them  at  a  tremendous  profit ;  but,  unfortunately,  instead 
of  getting  higher,  they  had  fallen  immediately  after 
Ernest  had  bought,  and  obstinately  refused  to  get  up 
again ;  so,  after  a  few  settlements,  he  had  got  frightened, 
for  he  read  an  article  in  some  newspaper,  which  said 
they  would  go  ever  so  much  lower,  and,  contrary  to 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         281 

Fryer's  advice,  he  insisted  on  selling — at  a  loss  of  some- 
thing like  £500.  He  had  hardly  sold  when  up  went  the 
shares  again,  and  he  saw  how  foolish  he  had  been,  and 
how  wise  Pryer  was,  for  if  Fryer's  advice  had  been 
followed,  he  would  have  made  £500,  instead  of  losing  it. 
However,  he  told  himself,  he  must  live  and  learn. 

Then  Pryer  made  a  mistake.  They  had  bought  some 
shares,  and  the  shares  went  up  delightfully  for  about  a 
fortnight.  This  was  a  happy  time  indeed,  for  by  the 
end  of  a  fortnight  the  lost  £500  had  been  recovered,  and 
three  or  four  hundred  pounds  had  been  cleared  into  the 
bargain.  All  the  feverish  anxiety  of  that  miserable  six 
weeks,  when  the  £500  was  being  lost,  was  now  being 
repaid  with  interest.  Ernest  wanted  to  sell  and  make 
sure  of  the  profit,  but  Pryer  would  not  hear  of  it ;  they 
would  go  ever  so  much  higher  yet,  and  he  showed  Ernest 
an  article  in  some  newspaper  which  proved  that  what 
he  said  was  reasonable,  and  they  did  go  up  a  little — but 
only  a  very  little,  for  then  they  went  down,  down,  and 
Ernest  saw  first  his  clear  profit  of  three  or  four  hundred 
pounds  go,  and  then  the  £500  loss,  which  he  thought  he 
had  recovered,  slipped  away  by  falls  of  a  half  and  one 
at  a  time,  and  then  he  lost  £200  more.  Then  a  newspaper 
said  that  these  shares  were  the  greatest  rubbish  that  had 
ever  been  imposed  upon  the  English  public,  and  Ernest 
could  stand  it  no  longer,  so  he  sold  out,  again  this  time 
against  Fryer's  advice,  so  that  when  they  went  up,  as 
they  shortly  did,  Pryer  scored  off  Ernest  a  second  time. 

Ernest  was  not  used  to  vicissitudes  of  this  kind,  and 
they  made  him  so  anxious  that  his  health  was  affected. 
It  was  arranged  therefore  that  he  had  better  know  noth- 
ing of  what  was  being  done.  Pryer  was  a  much  better 
man  of  business  than  he  was,  and  would  see  to  it  all. 
This  relieved  Ernest  of  a  good  deal  of  trouble,  and  was 
better  after  all  for  the  investments  themselves;  for,  as 
Pryer  justly  said,  a  man  must  not  have  a  faint  heart  if  he 
hopes  to  succeed  in  buying  and  selling  upon  the  Stock 


282         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Exchange,  and  seeing  Ernest  nervous  made  Pryer  nerv- 
ous too — at  least,  he  said  it  did.  So  the  money  drifted 
more  and  more  into  Fryer's  hands.  As  for  Pryer  him- 
self, he  had  nothing  but  his  curacy  and  a  small  allow- 
ance from  his  father. 

Some  of  Ernest's  old  friends  got  an  inkling  from  his 
letters  of  what  he  was  doing,  and  did  their  utmost  to  dis- 
suade him,  but  he  was  as  infatuated  as  a  young  lover  of 
two  and  twenty.  Finding  that  these  friends  disapproved, 
he  dropped  away  from  them,  and  they,  being  bored  with 
his  egotism  and  high-flown  ideas,  were  not  sorry  to  let 
him  do  so.  Of  course,  he  said  nothing  about  his  specu- 
lations— indeed,  he  hardly  knew  that  anything  done  in 
so  good  a  cause  could  be  called  speculation.  At  Batters- 
by,  when  his  father  urged  him  to  look  out  for  a  next  pre- 
sentation, and  even  brought  one  or  two  promising  ones 
under  his  notice,  he  made  objections  and  excuses,  though 
always  promising  to  do  as  his  father  desired  very  shortly. 


CHAPTER   LVI 

BY  and  by  a  subtle,  indefinable  malaise  began  to  take 
possession  of  him.  I  once  saw  a  very  young  foal  trying 
to  eat  some  most  objectionable  refuse,  and  unable  to 
make  up  its  mind  whether  it  was  good  or  no.  Clearly 
it  wanted  to  be  told.  If  its  mother  had  seen  what  it  was 
doing  she  would  have  set  it  right  in  a  moment,  and  as 
soon  as  ever  it  had  been  told  that  what  it  was  eating  was 
filth,  the  foal  would  have  recognised  it  and  never  have 
wanted  to  be  told  again ;  but  the  foal  could  not  settle  the 
matter  for  itself,  or  make  up  its  mind  whether  it  liked 
what  it  was  trying  to  eat  or  no,  without  assistance  from 
without.  I  suppose  it  would  have  come  to  do  so  by  and 
by,  but  it  was  wasting  time  and  trouble,  which  a  single 
look  from  its  mother  would  have  saved,  just  as  wort  will 
in  time  ferment  of  itself,  but  will  ferment  much  more 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         283 

quickly  if  a  little  yeast  be  added  to  it.  In  the  matter  of 
knowing  what  gives  us  pleasure  we  are  all  like  wort,  and 
if  unaided  from  without  can  only  ferment  slowly  and 
toilsomely. 

My  unhappy  hero  about  this  time  was  very  much  like 
the  foal,  or  rather  he  felt  much  what  the  foal  would 
have  felt  if  its  mother  and  all  the  other  grown-up  horses  - 
in  the  field  had  vowed  that  what  it  was  eating  was  the 
most  excellent  and  nutritious  food  to  be  found  any- 
where. He  was  so  anxious  to  do  what  was  right,  and 
so  ready  to  believe  that  every  one  knew  better  than  him- 
self, that  he  never  ventured  to  admit  to  himself  that  he 
might  be  all  the  while  on  a  hopelessly  wrong  track.  It 
did  not  occur  to  him  that  there  might  be  a  blunder  any- 
where, much  less  did  it  occur  to  him  to  try  and  find  out 
where  the  blunder  was.  Nevertheless  he  became  daily 
more  full  of  malaise,  and  daily,  only  he  knew  it  not,  more 
ripe  for  an  explosion  should  a  spark  fall  upon  him. 

One  thing,  however,  did  begin  to  loom  out  of  the  gen- 
eral vagueness,  and  to  this  he  instinctively  turned  as  try- 
ing to  seize  it — I  mean,  the  fact  that  he  was  saving  very 
few  souls,  whereas  there  were  thousands  and  thousands 
being  lost  hourly  all  around  him  which  a  little  energy 
such  as  Mr.  Hawke's  might  save.  Day  after  day  went 
by,  and  what  was  he  doing?  Standing  on  professional 
etiquette,  and  praying  that  his  shares  might  go  up  and 
down  as  he  wanted  them,  so  that  they  might  give  him 
money  enough  to  enable  him  to  regenerate  the  universe. 
But  in  the  meantime  the  people  were  dying.  How  many 
souls  would  not  be  doomed  to  endless  ages  of  the  most 
frightful  torments  that  the  mind  could  think  of,  before 
he  could  bring  his  spiritual  pathology  engine  to  bear  upon 
them?  Why  might  he  not  stand  and  preach  as  he  saw 
the  Dissenters  doing  sometimes  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields 
and  other  thoroughfares?  He  could  say  all  that  Mr. 
Hawke  had  said.  Mr.  Hawke  was  a  very  poor  creature 
in  Ernest's  eyes  now,  for  he  was  a  Low  Churchman, 


284         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

but  we  should  not  be  above  learning  from  any  one,  and 
surely  he  could  affect  his  hearers  as  powerfully  as  Mr. 
Hawke  had  affected  him  if  he  only  had  the  courage  to 
set  to  work.  The  people  whom  he  saw  preaching  in  the 
squares  sometimes  drew  large  audiences.  He  could  at 
any  rate  preach  better  than  they. 

Ernest  broached  this  to  Pryer,  who  treated  it  as  some- 
thing too  outrageous  to  be  even  thought  of.  Nothing, 
he  said,  could  more  tend  to  lower  the  dignity  of  the 
clergy  and  bring  the  Church  into  contempt.  His  manner 
was  brusque,  and  even  rude. 

Ernest  ventured  a  little  mild  dissent;  he  admitted  it 
was  not  usual,  but  something  at  any  rate  must  be  done, 
and  that  quickly.  This  was  how  Wesley  and  Whitfield 
had  begun  that  great  movement  which  had  kindled  relig- 
ious life  in  the  minds  of  hundreds  of  thousands.  This 
was  no  time  to  be  standing  on  dignity.  It  was  just  be- 
cause Wesley  and  Whitfield  had  done  what  the  Church 
would  not  that  they  had  won  men  to  follow  them  whom 
the  Church  had  now  lost. 

Pryer  eyed  Ernest  searchingly,  and  after  a  pause  said, 
"I  don't  know  what  to  make  of  you,  Pontifex ;  you  are 
at  once  so  very  right  and  so  very  wrong.  I  agree  with 
you  heartily  that  something  should  be  done,  but  it  must 
not  be  done  in  a  way  which  experience  has  shown  leads 
to  nothing  but  fanaticism  and  dissent.  Do  you  approve 
of  these  Wesleyans  ?  Do  you  hold  your  ordination  vows 
so  cheaply  as  to  think  that  it  does  not  matter  whether 
the  services  of  the  Church  are  performed  in  her  churches 
and  with  all  due  ceremony  or  not?  If  you  do — then, 
frankly,  you  had  no  business  to  be  ordained ;  if  you  do 
not,  then  remember  that  one  of  the  first  duties  of  a 
young  deacon  is  obedience  to  authority.  Neither  the 
Catholic  Church,  nor  yet  the  Church  of  England  allows 
her  clergy  to  preach  in  the  streets  of  cities  where  there  is 
no  lack  of  churches." 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         285 

Ernest  felt  the  force  of  this,  and  Pryer  saw  that  he 
Wavered. 

"We  are  living,"  he  continued  more  genially,  "in  an 
age  of  transition,  and  •  in  a  country  which,  though  it 
has  gained  much  by  the  Reformation,  does  not  perceive 
how  much  it  has  also  lost.  You  cannot  and  must  not 
hawk  Christ  about  in  the  streets  as  though  you  were 
in  a  heathen  country  whose  inhabitants  had  never  heard 
of  him.  The  people  here  in  London  have  had  ample 
warning.  Every  church  they  pass  is  a  protest  to  them 
against  their  lives,  and  a  call  to  them  to  repent.  Every 
church-bell  they  hear  is  a  witness  against  them,  everyone 
of  those  whom  they  meet  on  Sundays  going  to  or  coming 
from  church  is  a  warning  voice  from  God.  If  these 
countless  influences  produce  no  effect  upon  them,  neither 
will  the  few  transient  words  which  they  would  hear  from 
you.  You  are  like  Dives,  and  think  that  if  one  rose  from 
the  dead  they  would  hear  him.  Perhaps  they  might ;  but 
then  you  cannot  pretend  that  you  have  risen  from  the 
dead." 

Though  the  last  few  words  were  spoken  laughingly, 
there  was  a  sub-sneer  about  them  which  made  Ernest 
wince;  but  he  was  quite  subdued,  and  so  the  conversa- 
tion ended.  It  left  Ernest,  however,  not  for  the  first 
time,  consciously  dissatisfied  with  Pryer,  and  inclined  to 
set  his  friend's  opinion  on  one  side — not  openly,  but 
quietly,  and  without  telling  Pryer  anything  about  it. 


CHAPTER   LVII 

HE  had  hardly  parted  from  Pryer  before  there  occurred 
another  incident  which  strengthened  his  discontent.  He 
had  fallen,  as  I  have  shown,  among  a  gang  of  spiritual 
thieves  or  coiners,  who  passed  the  basest  metal  upon 
him  without  his  finding  it  out,  so  childish  and  inexperi- 
enced was  he  in  the  ways  of  anything  but  those  back 


286         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

eddies  of  the  world,  schools  and  universities.  Among  the 
bad  threepenny  pieces  which  had  been  passed  off  upon 
him,  and  which  he  kept  for  small  hourly  disbursement, 
was  a  remark  that  poor  people  were  much  nicer  than 
the  richer  and  better  educated.  Ernest  now  said  that 
he  always  travelled  third  class  not  because  it  was  cheaper, 
but  because  the  people  whom  he  met  in  third  class  car- 
riages were  so  much  pleasanter  and  better  behaved. 
As  for  the  young  men  who  attended  Ernest's  evening 
classes,  they  were  pronounced  to  be  more  intelligent  and 
better  ordered  generally  than  the  average  run  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  men.  Our  foolish  young  friend  having 
heard  Pryer  talk  to  this  effect,  caught  up  all  he  said 
and  reproduced  it  more  suo. 

One  evening,  however,  about  this  time,  whom  should 
he  see  coming  along  a  small  street  not  far  from  his  own 
but,  of  all  persons  in  the  world,  Towneley,  looking  as 
full  of  life  and  good  spirits  as  ever,  and  if  possible  even 
handsomer  than  he  had  been  at  Cambridge.  Much  as 
Ernest  liked  him  he  found  himself  shrinking  from  speak- 
ing to  him,  and  was  endeavouring  to  pass  him  without 
doing  so  when  Towneley  saw  him  and  stopped  him  at 
once,  being  pleased  to  see  an  old  Cambridge  face.  He 
seemed  for  the  moment  a  little  confused  at  being  seen  in 
such  a  neighbourhood,  but  recovered  himself  so  soon  that 
Ernest  hardly  noticed  it,  and  then  plunged  into  a  few 
kindly  remarks  about  old  times.  Ernest  felt  that  he 
quailed  as  he  saw  Towneley's  eye  wander  to  his  white 
necktie  and  saw  that  he  was  being  reckoned  up,  and 
rather  disapprovingly  reckoned  up,  as  a  parson.  It  was 
the  merest  passing  shade  upon  Towneley's  face,  but 
Ernest  had  felt  it. 

Towneley  said  a  few  words  of  common  form  to  Ernest 
about  his  profession  as  being  what  he  thought  would  be 
most  likely  to  interest  him,  and  Ernest,  still  confused  and 
shy,  gave  him  for  lack  of  something  better  to  say  his 
little  threepenny-bit  about  poor  people  being  so  very  nice. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         287 

Towneley  took  this  for  what  it  was  worth  and  nodded 
assent,  whereon  Ernest  imprudently  went  further  and 
said,  "Don't  you  like  poor  people  very  much  yourself?" 

Towneley  gave  his  face  a  comical  but  good-natured 
screw,  and  said  quietly,  but  slowly  and  decidedly,  "No, 
no,  no,"  and  escaped. 

It  was  all  over  with  Ernest  from  that  moment.  As 
usual  he  did  not  know  it,  but  he  had  entered  none  the  less 
upon  another  reaction.  Towneley  had  just  taken  Ernest's 
threepenny-bit  into  his  hands,  looked  at  it  and  returned 
it  to  him  as  a  bad  one.  Why  did  he  see  in  a  moment 
that  it  was  a  bad  one  now,  though  he  had  been  unable  to 
see  it  when  he  had  taken  it  from  Pryer?  Of  course 
some  poor  people  were  very  nice,  and  always  would  be 
so,  but  as  though  scales  had  fallen  suddenly  from  his 
eyes  he  saw  that  no  one  was  nicer  for  being  poor,  and 
that  between  the  upper  and  lower  classes  there  was  a 
gulf  which  amounted  practically  to  an  impassable  bar- 
rier. 

That  evening  he  reflected  a  good  deal.  If  Towneley 
was  right,  and  Ernest  felt  that  the  "No"  had  applied  not 
to  the  remark  about  poor  people  only,  but  to  the  whole 
scheme  and  scope  of  his  own  recently  adopted  ideas, 
he  and  Pryer  must  surely  be  on  a  wrong  track.  Towne- 
ley had  not  argued  with  him ;  he  had  said  one  word  only, 
and  that  one  of  the  shortest  in  the  language,  but  Ernest 
was  in  a  fit  state  for  inoculation,  and  the  minute  particle 
of  virus  set  about  working  immediately. 

Which  did  he  now  think  was  most  likely  to  have  taken 
the  juster  view  of  life  and  things,  and  whom  would  it 
be  best  to  imitate,  Towneley  or  Pryer?  His  heart  re- 
turned answer  to  itself  without  a  moment's  hesitation. 
The  faces  of  men  like  Towneley  were  open  and  kindly; 
they  looked  as  if  at  ease  themselves,  and  as  though  they 
would  set  all  who  had  to  do  with  them  at  ease  as  far  as 
might  be.  The  faces  of  Pryer  and  his  friends  were 
not  like  this.  Why  had  he  felt  tacitly  rebuked  as  soon 


288         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

as  he  had  met  Towneley?  Was  he  not  a  Christian? 
Certainly;  he  believed  in  the  Church  of  England  as  a 
matter  of  course.  Then  how  could  he  be  himself  wrong 
in  trying  to  act  up  to  the  faith  that  he  and  Towneley  held 
in  common  ?  He  was  trying  to  lead  a  quiet,  unobtrusive 
life  of  self-devotion,  whereas  Towneley  was  not,  so  far 
as  he  could  see,  trying  to  do  anything  of  the  kind;  he 
was  only  trying  to  get  on  comfortably  in  the  world,  and 
to  look  and  be  as  nice  as  possible.  And  he  was  nice,  and 
Ernest  knew  that  such  men  as  himself  and  Pryer  were 
not  nice,  and  his  old  dejection  came  over  him. 

Then  came  an  even  worse  reflection;  how  if  he  had 
fallen  among  material  thieves  as  well  as  spiritual  ones? 
He  knew  very  little  of  how  his  money  was  going  on ;  he 
had  put  it  all  now  into  Fryer's  hands,  and  though  Pryer 
gave  him  cash  to  spend  whenever  he  wanted  it,  he  seemed 
impatient  of  being  questioned  as  to  what  was  being  done 
with  the  principal.  It  was  part  of  the  understanding,  he 
said,  that  that  was  to  be  left  to  him,  and  Ernest  had  better 
stick  to  this,  or  he,  Pryer,  would  throw  up  the  College 
of  Spiritual  Pathology  altogether;  and  so  Ernest  was 
cowed  into  acquiescence,  or  cajoled,  according  to  the  hu- 
mour in  which  Pryer  saw  him  to  be.  Ernest  thought  that 
further  questions  would  look  as  if  he  doubted  Pryer 's 
word,  and  also  that  he  had  gone  too  far  to  be  able  to  re- 
cede in  decency  or  honour.  This,  however,  he  felt  was 
riding  out  to  meet  trouble  unnecessarily.  Pryer  had  been 
a  little  impatient,  but  he  was  a  gentleman  and  an  admira- 
ble man  of  business,  so  his  money  would  doubtless  come 
back  to  him  all  right  some  day. 

Ernest  comforted  himself  as  regards  this  last  source  of 
anxiety,  but  as  regards  the  other,  he  began  to  feel  as 
though,  if  he  was  to  be  saved,  a  good  Samaritan  must 
hurry  up  from  somewhere — he  knew  not  whence. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         289 


CHAPTER   LVIII 

NEXT  day  he  felt  stronger  again.  He  had  been  listening 
to  the  voice  of  the  evil  one  on  the  night  before,  and 
would  parley  no  more  with  such  thoughts.  He  had 
chosen  his  profession,  and  his  duty  was  to  persevere 
with  it.  If  he  was  unhappy  it  was  probably  because  he 
was  not  giving  up  all  for  Christ.  Let  him  see  whether 
he  could  not  do  more  than  he  was  doing  now,  and  then 
perhaps  a  light  would  be  shed  upon  his  path. 

It  was  all  very  well  to  have  made  the  discovery  that 
he  didn't  very  much  like  poor  people,  but  he  had  got  to 
put  up  with  them,  for  it  was  among  them  that  his  work 
must  lie.  Such  men  as  Towneley  were  very  kind  and 
considerate,  but  he  knew  well  enough  it  was  only  on 
condition  that  he  did  not  preach  to  them.  He  could 
manage  the  poor  better,  and,  let  Pryer  sneer  as  he  liked, 
he  was  resolved  to  go  more  among  them,  and  try  the 
effect  of  bringing  Christ  to  them  if  they  would  not  come 
and  seek  Christ  of  themselves.  He  would  begin  with  his 
own  house. 

Who  then  should  he  take  first  ?  Surely  he  could  not  do 
better  than  begin  with  the  tailor  who  lived  immediately 
over  his  head.  This  would  be  desirable,  not  only  because 
he  was  the  one  who  seemed  to  stand  most  in  need  of 
conversion,  but  also  because,  if  he  were  once  converted, 
he  would  no  longer  beat  his  wife  at  two  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  the  house  would  be  much  pleasanter  in 
consequence.  He  would  therefore  go  upstairs  at  once, 
and  have  a  quiet  talk  with  this  man. 

Before  doing  so,  he  thought  it  would  be  well  if  he 
were  to  draw  up  something  like  a  plan  of  a  campaign ;  he 
therefore  reflected  over  some  pretty  conversations  which 
would  do  very  nicely  if  Mr.  Holt  would  be  kind  enough 
to  make  the  answers  proposed  for  him  in  their  proper 
places.  But  the  man  was  a  great  hulking  fellow,  of  a 


290         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

savage  temper,  and  Ernest  was  forced  to  admit  that  un- 
foreseen developments  might  arise  to  disconcert  him. 
They  say  it  takes  nine  tailors  to  make  a  man,  but  Ernest 
felt  that  it  would  take  at  least  nine  Ernests  to  make  a 
Mr.  Holt.  How  if,  as  soon  as  Ernest  came  in,  the  tailor 
were  to  become  violent  and  abusive  ?  What  could  he  do  ? 
Mr.  Holt  was  in  his  own  lodgings,  and  had  a  right  to  be 
undisturbed.  A  legal  right,  yes,  but  had  he  a  moral 
right?  Ernest  thought  not,  considering  his  mode  of  life. 
But  put  this  on  one  side ;  if  the  man  were  to  be  violent, 
what  should  he  do  ?  Paul  had  fought  with  wild  beasts  at 
Ephesus — that  must  indeed  have  been  awful — but  per- 
haps they  were  not  very  wild  wild  beasts ;  a  rabbit  and  a 
canary  are  wild  beasts ;  but,  formidable  or  not  as  wild 
beasts  go,  they  would,  nevertheless,  stand  no  chance 
against  St.  Paul,  for  he  was  inspired ;  the  miracle  would 
have  been  if  the  wild  beasts  escaped,  not  that  St.  Paul 
should  have  done  so;  but,  however  all  this  might  be, 
Ernest  felt  that  he  dared  not  begin  to  convert  Mr.  Holt 
by  fighting  him.  Why,  when  he  had  heard  Mrs.  Holt 
screaming  "murder,"  he  had  cowered  under  the  bed 
clothes  and  waited,  expecting  to  hear  the  blood  dripping 
through  the  ceiling  on  to  his  own  floor.  His  imagination 
translated  every  sound  into  a  pat,  pat,  pat,  and  once  or 
twice  he  thought  he  had  felt  it  dropping  on  to  his  coun- 
terpane, but  he  had  never  gone  upstairs  to  try  and  rescue 
poor  Mrs.  Holt.  Happily  it  had  proved  next  morning 
that  Mrs.  Holt  was  in  her  usual  health. 

Ernest  was  in  despair  about  hitting  on  any  good  way 
of  opening  up  spiritual  communication  with  his  neigh- 
bour, when  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  had  better  perhaps 
begin  by  going  upstairs,  and  knocking  very  gently  at  Mr. 
Holt's  door.  He  would  then  resign  himself  to  the  guid- 
ance of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  act  as  the  occasion,  which, 
I  suppose,  was  another  name  for  the  Holy  Spirit,  sug- 
gested. Triply  armed  with  this  reflection,  he  mounted 
the  stairs  quite  jauntily,  and  was  about  to  knock  when 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         291 

he  heard  Holt's  voice  inside  swearing  savagely  at  his 
wife.  This  made  him  pause  to  think  whether  after  all 
the  moment  was  an  auspicious  one,  and  while  he  was  thus 
pausing,  Mr.  Holt,  who  had  heard  that  someone  was  on 
the  stairs,  opened  the  door  and  put  his  head  out.  When 
he  saw  Ernest,  he  made  an  unpleasant,  not  to  say  offen- 
sive movement,  which  might  or  might  not  have  been 
directed  at  Ernest,  and  looked  altogether  so  ugly  that  my 
hero  had  an  instantaneous  and  unequivocal  revelation 
from  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  effect  that  he  should  con- 
tinue his  journey  upstairs  at  once,  as  though  he  had  never 
intended  arresting  it  at  Mr.  Holt's  room,  and  begin  by 
converting  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Baxter,  the  Methodists  in  the 
top  floor  front.  So  this  was  what  he  did. 

These  good  people  received  him  with  open  arms,  and 
were  quite  ready  to  talk.  He  was  beginning  to  convert 
them  from  Methodism  to  the  Church  of  England,  when 
all  at  once  he  found  himself  embarrassed  by  discovering 
that  he  did  not  know  what  he  was  to  convert  them  from. 
He  knew  the  Church  of  England,  or  thought  he  did,  but 
he  knew  nothing  of  Methodism  beyond  its  name.  When 
he  found  that,  according  to  Mr.  Baxter,  the  Wesleyans 
had  a  vigorous  system  of  Church  discipline  (which 
worked  admirably  in  practice)  it  appeared  to  him  that 
John  Wesley  had  anticipated  the  spiritual  engine  which 
he  and  Pryer  were  preparing,  and  when  he  left  the  room 
he  was  aware  that  he  had  caught  more  of  a  spiritual  Tar- 
tar than  he  had  expected.  But  he  must  certainly  explain 
to  Pryer  that  the  Wesleyans  had  a  system  of  Church  dis- 
cipline. This  was  very  important. 

Mr.  Baxter  advised  Ernest  on  no  account  to  meddle 
with  Mr.  Holt,  and  Ernest  was  much  relieved  at  the  ad- 
vice. If  an  opportunity  arose  of  touching  the  man's 
heart,  he  would  take  it ;  he  would  pat  the  children  on  the 
head  when  he  saw  them  on  the  stairs,  and  ingratiate 
himself  with  them  as  far  as  he  dared ;  they  were  sturdy 
and  Ernest  was  afraid  even  of  them,  for 


292         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

they  were  ready  with  their  tongues,  and  knew  much  for 
their  ages.  Ernest  felt  that  it  would  indeed  be  almost 
better  for  him  that  a  millstone  should  be  hanged  about 
his  neck,  and  he  cast  into  the  sea,  than  that  he  should 
offend  one  of  the  little  Holts.  However,  he  would  try 
not  to  offend  them ;  perhaps  an  occasional  penny  or  two 
might  square  them.  This  was  as  much  as  he  could  do, 
for  he  saw  that  the  attempt  to  be  instant  out  of  season, 
as  well  as  in  season,  would,  St.  Paul's  injunction  not- 
withstanding, end  in  failure. 

Mrs.  Baxter  gave  a  very  bad  account  of  Miss  Emily 
Snow,  who  lodged  in  the  second  floor  back  next  to  Mr. 
Holt.  Her  story  was  quite  different  from  that  of  Mrs. 
Jupp  the  landlady.  She  would  doubtless  be  only  too 
glad  to  receive  Ernest's  ministrations  or  those  of  any 
other  gentleman,  but  she  was  no  governess,  she 
was  in  the  ballet  at  Drury  Lane,  and  besides  this,  she 
was  a  very  bad  young  woman,  and  if  Mrs.  Baxter  was 
landlady  would  not  be  allowed  to  stay  in  the  house  a 
single  hour,  not  she  indeed. 

Miss  Maitland  in  the  next  room  to  Mrs.  Baxter's  own 
was  a  quiet  and  respectable  young  woman  to  all  appear- 
ance ;  Mrs.  Baxter  had  never  known  of  any  goings  on  in 
that  quarter,  but,  bless  you,  still  waters  run  deep,  and 
these  girls  were  all  alike,  one  as  bad  as  the  other.  She 
was  out  at  all  kinds  of  hours,  and  when  you  knew  that 
you  knew  all. 

Ernest  did  not  pay  much  heed  to  these  aspersions  of 
Mrs.  Baxter's.  Mrs.  Jupp  had  got  round  the  greater 
number  of  his  many  blind  sides,  and  had  warned  him 
not  to  believe  Mrs.  Baxter,  whose  lip  she  said  was  some- 
thing awful. 

Ernest  had  heard  that  women  were  always  jealous  of 
one  another,  and  certainly  these  young  women  were  more 
attractive  than  Mrs.  Baxter  was,  so  jealousy  was  probably 
at  the  bottom  of  it.  If  they  were  maligned  there  could  be 
no  objection  to  his  making  their  acquaintance;  if  not 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         293 

maligned  they  had  all  the  more  need  of  his  ministrations. 
He  would  reclaim  them  at  once. 

He  told  Mrs.  Jupp  of  his  intention.  Mrs.  Jupp  at 
first  tried  to  dissuade  him,  but  seeing  him  resolute,  sug- 
gested that  she  should  herself  see  Miss  Snow  first,  so 
as  to  prepare  her  and  prevent  her  from  being  alarmed  by 
his  visit.  She  was  not  at  home  now,  but  in  the  course 
of  the  next  day,  it  should  be  arranged.  In  the  meantime 
he  had  better  try  Mr.  Shaw,  the  tinker,  in  the  front 
kitchen.  Mrs.  Baxter  had  told  Ernest  that  Mr.  Shaw 
was  from  the  North  Country,  and  an  avowed  free- 
thinker ;  he  would  probably,  she  said,  rather  like  a  visit, 
but  she  did  not  think  Ernest  would  stand  much  chance 
of  making  a  convert  of  him. 


CHAPTER   LIX 

BEFORE  going  down  into  the  kitchen  to  convert  the  tinker 
Ernest  ran  hurriedly  over  his  analysis  of  Paley's  evi- 
dences, and  put  into  his  pocket  a  copy  of  Archbishop 
Whateley's  "Historic  Doubts."  Then  he  descended  the 
dark  rotten  old  stairs  and  knocked  at  the  tinker's  door. 
Mr.  Shaw  was  very  civil;  he  said  he  was  rather  throng 
just  now,  but  if  Ernest  did  not  mind  the  sound  of  ham- 
mering he  should  be  very  glad  of  a  talk  with  him.  Our 
hero,  assenting  to  this,  ere  long  led  the  conversation  to 
Whateley's  "Historic  Doubts" — a  work  which,  as  the 
reader  may  know,  pretends  to  show  that  there  never  was 
any  such  person  as  Napoleon  Buonaparte,  and  thus 
satirises  the  arguments  of  those  who  have  attacked  the 
Christian  miracles. 

Mr.  Shaw  said  he  knew  "Historic  Doubts"  very  well. 

"And  what  you  think  of  it?"  said  Ernest,  who  re- 
garded the  pamphlet  as  a  masterpiece  of  wit  and  cogency. 

"If  you  really  want  to  know,"  said  Mr.  Shaw,  with  a 
sly  twinkle,  "I  think  that  he  who  was  so  willing  and 


294         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

able  to  prove  that  what  was  was  not,  would  be  equally 
able  and  willing  to  make  a  case  for  thinking  that  what 
was  not  was,  if  it  suited  his  purpose."  Ernest  was  very 
much  taken  aback.  How  was  it  that  all  the  clever  people 
of  Cambridge  had  never  put  him  up  to  this  simple  re- 
joinder? The  answer  is  easy :  they  did  not  develop  it  for 
the  same  reason  that  a  hen  had  never  developed  webbed 
feet — that  is  to  say,  because  they  did  not  want  to  do  so ; 
but  this  was  before  the  days  of  Evolution,  and  Ernest 
could  not  as  yet  know  anything  of  the  great  principle 
that  underlies  it. 

"You  see,"  continued  Mr.  Shaw,  "these  writers  all  get 
their  living  by  writing  in  a  certain  way,  and  the  more 
they  write  in  that  way,  the  more  they  are  likely  to  get  on. 
You  should  not  call  them  dishonest  for  this  any  more 
than  a  judge  should  call  a  barrister  dishonest  for  earning 
his  living  by  defending  one  in  whose  innocence  he  does 
not  seriously  believe ;  but  you  should  hear  the  barrister 
on  the  other  side  before  you  decide  upon  the  case." 

This  was  another  facer.  Ernest  could  only  stammer 
that  he  had  endeavoured  to  examine  these  questions  as 
carefully  as  he  could. 

"You  think  you  have,"  said  Mr.  Shaw;  "you  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  gentlemen  think  you  have  examined 
everything.  I  have  examined  very  little  myself  except 
the  bottoms  of  old  kettles  and  saucepans,  but  if  you  will 
answer  me  a  few  questions,  I  will  tell  you  whether  or  no 
you  have  examined  much  more  than  I  have." 

Ernest  expressed  his  readiness  to  be  questioned. 

"Then,"  said  the  tinker,  "give  me  the  story  of  the 
Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  as  told  in  St.  John's  gos- 
pel." 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  Ernest  mixed  up  the  four  ac- 
counts in  a  deplorable  manner;  he  even  made  the  angel 
come  down  and  roll  away  the  stone  and  sit  upon  it.  He 
was  covered  with  confusion  when  the  tinker  first  told 
him  without  the  book  of  some  of  his  many  inaccuracies, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         295 

and  then  verified  his  criticisms  by  referring  to  the  New 
Testament  itself. 

"Now,"  said  Mr.  Shaw  good-naturedly,  "I  am  an  old 
man  and  you  are  a  young  one,  so  perhaps  you'll  not  mind 
my  giving  you  a  piece  of  advice.  I  like  you,  for  I  believe 
you  mean  well,  but  you've  been  real  bad  brought  up,  and 
I  don't  think  you  have  ever  had  so  much  as  a  chance  yet. 
You  know  nothing  of  our  side  of  the  question,  and  I  have 
just  shown  you  that  you  do  not  know  much  more  of  your 
own,  but  I  think  you  will  make  a  kind  of  Carlyle  sort  of  a 
man  some  day.  Now  go  upstairs  and  read  the  accounts 
of  the  Resurrection  correctly  without  mixing  them  up, 
and  have  a  clear  idea  of  what  it  is  that  each  writer  tells 
us,  then  if  you  feel  inclined  to  pay  me  another  visit  I 
shall  be  glad  to  see  you,  for  I  shall  know  you  have  made 
a  good  beginning  and  mean  business.  Till  then,  sir,  I 
must  wish  you  a  very  good  morning." 

Ernest  retreated  abashed.  An  hour  sufficed  him  to 
perform  the  task  enjoined  upon  him  by  Mr.  Shaw;  and 
at  the  end  of  that  hour  the  "No,  no,  no,"  which  still 
sounded  in  his  ears  as  he  heard  it  from  Towneley,  came 
ringing  up  more  loudly  still  from  the  very  pages  of  the 
Bible  itself,  and  in  respect  of  the  most  important  of  all 
the  events  which  are  recorded  in  it.  Surely  Ernest's  first 
day's  attempt  at  more  promiscuous  visiting,  and  at  carry- 
ing out  his  principles  more  thoroughly,  had  not  been  un- 
fruitful. But  he  must  go  and  have  a  talk  with  Pryer. 
He  therefore  got  his  lunch  and  went  to  Fryer's  lodg- 
ings. Pryer  not  being  at  home,  he  lounged  to  the  British 
Museum  Reading  Room,  then  recently  opened,  sent  for 
the  "Vestiges  of  Creation,"  which  he  had  never  yet  seen, 
and  spent  the  rest  of  the  afternoon  in  reading  it. 

Ernest  did  not  see  Pryer  on  the  day  of  his  conversa- 
tion with  Mr.  Shaw,  but  he  did  so  next  morning  and 
found  him  in  a  good  temper,  which  of  late  he  had  rarely 
been.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  had  behaved  to  Ernest  in 
a  way  which  did  not  bode  well  for  the  harmony  with 


296         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

which  the  College  of  Spiritual  Pathology  would  work 
when  it  had  once  been  founded.  It  almost  seemed  as 
though  he  were  trying  to  get  a  complete  moral  ascend- 
ency over  him,  so  as  to  make  him  a  creature  of  his 
own. 

He  did  not  think  it  possible  that  he  could  go  too  far, 
and,  indeed,  when  I  reflect  upon  my  hero's  folly  and 
inexperience,  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  excuse  for  the 
conclusion  which  Pryer  came  to. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  it  was  not  so.  Ernest's 
faith  in  Pryer  had  been  too  great  to  be  shaken  down  all 
in  a  moment,  but  it  had  been  weakened  lately  more  than 
once.  Ernest  had  fought  hard  against  allowing  himself 
to  see  this,  nevertheless  any  third  person  who  knew  the 
pair  would  have  been  able  to  see  that  the  connection  be- 
tween the  two  might  end  at  any  moment,  for  when  the 
time  for  one  of  Ernest's  snipe-like  changes  of  flight  came, 
he  was  quick  in  making  it;  the  time,  however,  was  not 
yet  come,  and  the  intimacy  between  the  two  was  appar- 
ently all  that  it  had  ever  been.  It  was  only  that  horrid 
money  business  (so  said  Ernest  to  himself)  that  caused 
any  unpleasantness  between  them,  and  no  doubt  Pryer 
was  right,  and  he,  Ernest,  much  too  nervous.  However, 
that  might  stand  over  for  the  present. 

In  like  manner,  though  he  had  received  a  shock  by 
reason  of  his  conversation  with  Mr.  Shaw,  and  by  look- 
ing at  the  "Vestiges,"  he  was  as  yet  too  much  stunned  to 
realise  the  change  which  was  coming  over  him.  In  each 
case  the  momentum  of  old  habits  carried  him  forward 
in  the  old  direction.  He  therefore  called  on  Pryer,  and 
spent  an  hour  and  more  with  him. 

He  did  not  say  that  he  had  been  visiting  among  his 
neighbours;  this  to  Pryer  would  have  been  like  a  red 
rag  to  a  bull.  He  only  talked  in  much  his  usual  vein 
about  the  proposed  College,  the  lamentable  want  of  in- 
terest in  spiritual  things  which  was  characteristic  of  mod- 
ern society,  and  other  kindred  matters ;  he  concluded  by 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         297 

saying  that  for  the  present  he  feared  Pryer  was  indeed 
right,  and  that  nothing  could  be  done. 

"As  regards  the  laity,"  said  Pryer,  "nothing;  not  until 
we  have  a  discipline  which  we  can  enforce  with  pains  and 
penalties.  How  can  a  sheep  dog  work  a  flock  of 
sheep  unless  he  can  bite  occasionally  as  well  as  bark? 
But  as  regards  ourselves  we  can  do  much." 

Pryer's  manner  was  strange  throughout  the  conversa- 
tion, as  though  he  were  thinking  all  the  time  of  some- 
thing else.  His  eyes  wandered  curiously  over  Ernest, 
as  Ernest  had  often  noticed  them  wander  before:  the 
words  were  about  Church  discipline,  but  somehow  or 
other  the  discipline  part  of  the  story  had  a  knack  of  drop- 
ping out  after  having  been  again  and  again  emphatically 
declared  to  apply  to  the  laity  and  not  to  the  clergy :  once 
indeed  Pryer  had  pettishly  exclaimed :  "Oh,  bother  the 
College  of  Spiritual  Pathology."  As  regards  the  clergy, 
glimpses  of  a  pretty  large  cloven  hoof  kept  peeping  out 
from  under  the  saintly  robe  of  Pryer's  conversation,  to 
the  effect,  that  so  long  as  they  were  theoretically  per- 
fect, practical  peccadilloes — or  even  peccadaccios,  if  there 
is  such  a  word,  were  of  less  importance.  He  was  restless, 
as  though  wanting  to  approach  a  subject  which  he  did 
not  quite  venture  to  touch  upon,  and  kept  harping  (he  did 
this  about  every  third  day)  on  the  wretched  lack  of 
definition  concerning  the  limits  of  vice  and  virtue,  and 
the  way  in  which  half  the  vices  wanted  regulating  rather 
than  prohibiting.  He  dwelt  also  on  the  advantages  of 
complete  unreserve,  and  hinted  that  there  were  mysteries 
into  which  Ernest  had  not  yet  been  initiated,  but  which 
would  enlighten  him  when  he  got  to  know  them,  as  he 
would  be  allowed  to  do  when  his  friends  saw  that  he  was 
strong  enough. 

Pryer  had  often  been  like  this  before,  but  never  so 
nearly,  as  it  seemed  to  Ernest,  coming  to  a  point — though 
what  the  point  was  he  could  not  fully  understand.  His 
inquietude  was  communicating  itself  to  Ernest,  who 


298         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

would  probably  ere  long  have  come  to  know  as  much  as 
Pryer  could  tell  him,  but  the  conversation  was  abruptly 
interrupted  by  the  appearance  of  a  visitor.  We  shall 
never  know  how  it  would  have  ended,  for  this  was  the 
very  last  time  that  Ernest  ever  saw  Pryer.  Perhaps 
Pryer  was  going  to  break  to  him  some  bad  news  about 
his  speculations. 


CHAPTER   LX 

ERNEST  now  went  home  and  occupied  himself  till  lunch- 
eon with  studying  Dean  Alford's  notes  upon  the  various 
Evangelistic  records  of  the  Resurrection,  doing  as  Mr. 
Shaw  had  told  him,  and  trying  to  find  out,  not  that  they 
were  all  accurate,  but  whether  they  were  all  accurate  or 
no.  He  did  not  care  which  result  he  should  arrive  at,  but 
he  was  resolved  that  he  would  reach  one  or  the  other. 
When  he  had  finished  Dean  Alford's  notes  he  found 
them  come  to  this,  namely,  that  no  one  yet  had  succeeded 
in  bringing  the  four  accounts  into  tolerable  harmony  with 
each  other,  and  that  the  Dean,  seeing  no  chance  of  suc- 
ceeding better  than  his  predecessors  had  done,  recom- 
mended that  the  whole  story  should  be  taken  on  trust — 
and  this  Ernest  was  not  prepared  to  do. 

He  got  his  luncheon,  went  out  for  a  long  walk,  and 
returned  to  dinner  at  half  past  six.  While  Mrs.  Jupp  was 
getting  him  his  dinner — a  steak  and  a  pint  of  stout — she 
told  him  that  Miss  Snow  would  be  very  happy  to  see^ 
him  in  about  an  hour's  time.  This  disconcerted  him,  for 
his  mind  was  too  unsettled  for  him  to  wish  to  convert 
anyone  just  then.  He  reflected  a  little,  and  found  that, 
in  spite  of  the  sudden  shock  to  his  opinions,  he  was  be- 
ing irresistibly  drawn  to  pay  the  visit  as  though  nothing 
had  happened.  It  would  not  look  well  for  him  not  to  go, 
for  he  was  known  to  be  in  the  house.  He  ought  not  to 
be  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  change  his  opinions  on  such 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         299 

a  matter  as  the  evidence  for  Christ's  Resurrection  all  of 
a  sudden — besides  he  need  not  talk  to  Miss  Snow  about 
this  subject  to-day — there  were  other  things  he  might 
talk  about.  What  other  things?  Ernest  felt  his  heart 
beat  fast  and  fiercely,  and  an  inward  monitor  warned  him 
that  he  was  thinking  of  anything  rather  than  of  Miss 
Snow's  soul. 

What  should  he  do?  Fly,  fly,  fly — it  was  the  only 
safety.  But  would  Christ  have  fled?  Even  though 
Christ  had  not  died  and  risen  from  the  dead  there  could 
be  no  question  that  He  was  the  model  whose  example 
we  were  bound  to  follow.  Christ  would  not  have  fled 
from  Miss  Snow ;  he  was  sure  of  that,  for  He  went  about 
more  especially  with  prostitutes  and  disreputable  people. 
Now,  as  then,  it  was  the  business  of  the  true  Christian 
to  call  not  the  righteous  but  sinners  to  repentance.  It 
would  be  inconvenient  to  him  to  change  his  lodgings, 
and  he  could  not  ask  Mrs.  Jupp  to  turn  Miss  Snow  and 
Miss  Maitland  out  of  the  house.  Where  was  he  to  draw 
the  line?  Who  would  be  just  good  enough  to  live  in  the 
same  house  with  him,  and  who  just  not  good  enough? 

Besides,  where  were  these  poor  girls  to  go  ?  Was  he  to 
drive  them  from  house  to  house  till  they  had  no  place  to 
lie  in  ?  It  was  absurd ;  his  duty  was  clear :  he  would  go 
and  see  Miss  Snow  at  once,  and  try  if  he  could  not  induce 
her  to  change  her  present  mode  of  life;  if  he  found 
temptation  becoming  too  strong  for  him  he  would  fly 
then — so  he  went  upstairs  with  his  Bible  under  his  arm, 
and  a  consuming  fire  in  his  heart. 

He  found  Miss  Snow  looking  very  pretty  in  a  neatly, 
not  to  say  demurely,  furnished  room.  I  think  she  had 
bought  an  illuminated  text  or  two,  and  pinned  it  up  over 
her  fireplace  that  morning.  Ernest  was  very  much 
pleased  with  her,  and  mechanically  placed  his  Bible  upon 
the  table.  He  had  just  opened  a  timid  conversation  and 
was  deep  in  blushes,  when  a  hurried  step  came  bounding 
up  the  stairs  as  though  of  one  over  whom  the  force  of 


3OO         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

gravity  had  little  power,  and  a  man  burst  into  the  room 
saying,  "I'm  come  before  my  time."  It  was  Towneley. 

His  face  dropped  as  he  caught  sight  of  Ernest.  "What, 
you  here,  Pontifex !  Well,  upon  my  word !" 

I  cannot  describe  the  hurried  explanations  that  passed 
quickly  between  the  three — enough  that  in  less  than  a 
minute  Ernest,  blushing  more  scarlet  than  ever,  slunk  off, 
Bible  and  all,  deeply  humiliated  as  he  contrasted  himself 
and  Towneley.  Before  he  had  reached  the  bottom  of  the 
staircase  leading  to  his  own  room  he  heard  Towneley's 
hearty  laugh  through  Miss  Snow's  door,  and  cursed  the 
hour  that  he  was  born. 

Then  it  flashed  upon  him  that  if  he  could  not  see  Miss 
Snow  he  could  at  any  rate  see  Miss  Maitland.  He  knew 
well  enough  what  he  wanted  now,  and  as  for  the  Bible, 
he  pushed  it  from  him  to  the  other  end  of  his  table.  It 
fell  over  on  to  the  floor,  and  he  kicked  it  into  a  corner. 
It  was  the  Bible  given  him  at  his  christening  by  his  affec- 
tionate aunt,  Elizabeth  Allaby.  True,  he  knew  very  little 
of  Miss  Maitland,  but  ignorant  young  fools  in  Ernest's 
state  do  not  reflect  or  reason  closely.  Mrs.  Baxter  had 
said  that  Miss  Maitland  and  Miss  Snow  were  birds  of  a 
feather,  and  Mrs.  Baxter  probably  knew  better  than  that 
old  liar,  Mrs.  Jupp.  Shakespeare  says : 

O  Opportunity,  thy  guilt  is  great, 
'Tis  thou  that  execut'st  the  traitor's  treason : 
Thou  set'st  the  wolf  where  he  the  lamb  may  get; 
Whoever  plots  the  sin,  thou  'point'st  the  season; 
'Tis  thou  that  spurn'st  at  right,  at  law,  at  reason; 
And  in  thy  shady  cell,  where  none  may  spy  him, 
Sits  Sin,  to  seize  the  souls  that  wander  by  him. 

If  the  guilt  of  opportunity  is  great,  how  much  greater 
is  the  guilt  of  that  which  is  believed  to  be  opportunity,  but 
in  reality  is  no  opportunity  at  all.  If  the  better  part 
of  valour  is  discretion,  how  much  more  is  not  discretion 
the  better  part  of  vice? 

About  ten  minutes  after  we  last  saw  Ernest,  a  scared, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         301 

insulted  girl,  flushed  and  trembling,  was  seen  hurrying 
from  Mrs.  Jupp's  house  as  fast  as  her  agitated  state 
would  let  her,  and  in  another  ten  minutes  two  policemen 
were  seen  also  coming  out  of  Mrs.  Jupp's,  between  whom 
there  shambled  rather  than  walked  our  unhappy  friend 
Ernest,  with  staring  eyes,  ghastly  pale,  and  with  despair 
branded  upon  every  line  of  his  face. 


CHAPTER   LXI 

PRYER  had  done  well  to  warn  Ernest  against  promiscuous 
house  to  house  visitation.  He  had  not  gone  outside  Mrs. 
Jupp's  street  door,  and  yet  what  had  been  the  result? 
Mr.  Holt  had  put  him  in  bodily  fear;  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Baxter  had  nearly  made  a  Methodist  of  him;  Mr.  Shaw 
had  undermined  his  faith  in  the  Resurrection;  Miss 
Snow's  charms  had  ruined — or  would  have  done  so  but 
for  an  accident — his  moral  character.  As  for  Miss  Mait- 
land,  he  had  done  his  best  to  ruin  hers,  and  had  damaged 
himself  gravely  and  irretrievably  in  consequence.  The 
only  lodger  who  had  done  him  no  harm  was  the  bellows' 
mender,  whom  he  had  not  visited. 

Other  young  clergymen,  much  greater  fools  in  many 
respects  than  he,  would  not  have  got  into  these  scrapes. 
He  seemed  to  have  developed  an  aptitude  for  mischief 
almost  from  the  day  of  his  having  been  ordained.  He 
could  hardly  preach  without  making  some  horrid  -faux 
pas.  He  preached  one  Sunday  morning  when  the  Bishop 
was  at  his  Rector's  church,  and  made  his  sermon  turn 
upon  the  question  what  kind  of  little  cake  it  was  that  the 
widow  of  Zarephath  had  intended  making  when  Elijah 
found  her  gathering  a  few  sticks.  He  demonstrated  that 
it  was  a  seed  cake.  The  sermon  was  really  very  amusing, 
and  more  than  once  he  saw  a  smile  pass  over  the  sea  of 
faces  underneath  him.  The  Bishop  was  very  angry,  and 
gave  my  hero  a  severe  reprimand  in  the  vestry  after 


302         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

service  was  over;  the  only  excuse  he  could  make  was 
that  he  was  preaching  ex  tempore,  had  not  thought  of  this 
particular  point  till  he  was  actually  in  the  pulpit,  and 
had  then  been  carried  away  by  it. 

Another  time  he  preached  upon  the  barren  fig-tree,  and 
described  the  hopes  of  the  owner  as  he  watched  the  deli- 
cate blossom  unfold,  and  give  promise  of  such  beautiful 
fruit  in  autumn.  Next  day  he  received  a  letter  from  a 
botanical  member  of  his  congregation  who  explained  to 
him  that  this  could  hardly  have  been,  inasmuch  as  the 
fig  produces  its  fruit  first  and  blossoms  inside  the  fruit, 
or  so  nearly  so  that  no  flower  is  perceptible  to  an  ordi- 
nary observer.  This  last,  however,  was  an  accident 
which  might  have  happened  to  any  one  but  a  scientist  or 
an  inspired  writer. 

The  only  excuse  I  can  make  for  him  is  that  he  was 
very  young — not  yet  four  and  twenty — and  that  in  mind 
as  in  body,  like  most  of  those  who  in  the  end  come  to 
think  for  themselves,  he  was  a  slow  grower.  By  far  the 
greater  part,  moreover,  of  his  education  had  been  an  at- 
tempt, not  so  much  to  keep  him  in  blinkers  as  to  gouge 
his  eyes  out  altogether. 

But  to  return  to  my  story.  It  transpired  afterwards 
that  Miss  Maitland  had  had  no  intention  of  giving  Ernest 
in  charge  when  she  ran  out  of  Mrs.  Jupp's  house.  She 
was  running  away  because  she  was  frightened,  but  almost 
the  first  person  whom  she  ran  against  had  happened  to  be 
a  policeman  of  a  serious  turn  of  mind,  who  wished  to 
gain  a  reputation  for  activity.  He  stopped  her,  ques- 
tioned her,  frightened  her  still  more,  and  it  was  he  rather 
than  Miss  Maitland  who  insisted  on  giving  my  hero  in 
charge  to  himself  and  another  constable. 

Towneley  was  still  in  Mrs.  Jupp's  house  when  the 
policeman  came.  He  had  heard  a  disturbance,  and  going 
down  to  Ernest's  room  while  Miss  Maitland  was  out  of 
doors,  had  found  him  lying,  as  it  were,  stunned  at  the 
foot  of  the  moral  precipice  over  which  he  had  that  mo- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         303 

ment  fallen.  He  saw  the  whole  thing  at  a  glance,  but 
before  he  could  take  action,  the  policemen  came  in  and 
action  became  impossible. 

He  asked  Ernest  who  were  his  friends  in  London. 
Ernest  at  first  wanted  not  to  say,  but  Towneley  soon  gave 
him  to  understand  that  he  must  do  as  he  was  bid,  and 
selected  myself  from  the  few  whom  he  had  named. 
"Writes  for  the  stage,  does  he?"  said  Towneley.  "Does 
he  write  comedy  ?"  Ernest  thought  Towneley  meant  that 
I  ought  to  write  tragedy,  and  said  he  was  afraid  I  wrote 
burlesque.  "Oh,  come,  come,"  said  Towneley,  "that  will 
do  famously.  I  will  go  and  see  him  at  once."  But  on 
second  thoughts  he  determined  to  stay  with  Ernest  and 
go  with  him  to  the  police  court.  So  he  sent  Mrs.  Jupp 
for  me.  Mrs.  Jupp  hurried  so  fast  to  fetch  me,  that  in 
spite  of  the  weather's  being  still  cold  she  was  "giving 
out,"  as  she  expressed  it,  in  streams.  The  poor  old 
wretch  would  have  taken  a  cab,  but  she  had  no  money 
and  did  not  like  to  ask  Towneley  to  give  her  some.  I 
saw  that  something  very  serious  had  happened,  but  was 
not  prepared  for  anything  so  deplorable  as  what  Mrs. 
Jupp  actually  told  me.  As  for  Mrs.  Jupp,  she  said  her 
heart  had  been  jumping  out  of  its  socket  and  back  again 
ever  since. 

I  got  her  into  a  cab  with  me,  and  we  went  off  to  the 
police  station.  She  talked  without  ceasing. 

"And  if  the  neighbours  do  say  cruel  things  about  me, 
I'm  sure  it  ain't  no  thanks  to  him  if  they're  true.  Mr. 
Pontifex  never  took  a  bit  o'  notice  of  me  no  more  than 
if  I  had  been  his  sister.  Oh,  it's  enough  to  make  anyone's 
back  bone  curdle.  Then  I  thought  perhaps  my  Rose 
might  get  on  better  with  him,  so  I  set  her  to  dust  him 
and  clean  him  as  though  I  were  busy,  and  gave  her  such 
a  beautiful  clean  new  pinny,  but  he  never  took  no  notice 
of  her  no  more  than  he  did  of  me,  and  she  didn't  want 
no  compliment  neither;  she  wouldn't  have  taken  not  a 
shilling  from  him,  though  he  had  offered  it,  but  he  didn't 


304         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

seem  to  know  anything  at  all.  I  can't  make  out  what  the 
young  men  are  a-coming  to;  I  wish  the  horn  may  blow 
for  me  and  the  worms  take  me  this  very  night,  if  it's  not 
enough  to  make  a  woman  stand  before  God  and  strike 
the  one  half  on  'em  silly  to  see  the  way  they  goes  on,  and 
many  an  honest  girl  has  to  go  home  night  after  night 
without  so  much  as  a  fourpenny-bit  and  paying  three  and 
sixpence  a  week  rent,  and  not  a  shelf  nor  cupboard  in 
the  place  and  a  dead  wall  in  front  of  the  window. 

"It's  not  Mr.  Pontifex,"  she  continued,  "that's  so  bad ; 
he's  good  at  heart.  He  never  says  nothing  unkind.  And 
then  there's  his  dear  eyes — but  when  I  speak  about  that 
to  my  Rose  she  calls  me  an  old  fool  and  says  I  ought  to 
be  poleaxed.  It's  that  Pryer  as  I  can't  abide.  Oh,  he! 
He  likes  to  wound  a  woman's  feelings,  he  do,  and  to  chuck 
anything  in  her  face,  he  do — he  likes  to  wind  a  woman 
up  and  to  wound  her  down."  (Mrs.  Jupp  pronounced 
"wound"  as  though  it  rhymed  to  "sound.")  "It's  a  gen- 
tleman's place  to  soothe  a  woman,  but  he,  he'd  like  to  tear 
her  hair  out  by  handfuls.  Why,  he  told  me  to  my  face 
that  I  was  a-getting  old ;  old,  indeed  !  there's  not  a  woman 
in  London  knows  my  age  except  Mrs.  Davis  down  in  the 
Old  Kent  Road,  and  beyond  a  haricot  vein  in  one  of  my 
legs  I'm  as  young  as  ever  I  was.  Old,  indeed !  There's 
many  a  good  tune  played  on  an  old  fiddle.  I  hate  his 
nasty  insinuendos." 

Even  if  I  had  wanted  to  stop  her,  I  could  not  have  done 
so.  She  said  a  great  deal  more  than  I  have  given  above. 
I  have  left  out  much  because  I  could  not  remember  it,  but 
still  more  because  it  was  really  impossible  for  me  to  print 
it. 

When  we  got  to  the  police  station  I  found  Towneley 
and  Ernest  already  there.  The  charge  was  one  of  as- 
sault, but  not  aggravated  by  serious  violence.  Even  so, 
however,  it  was  lamentable  enough,  and  we  both  saw 
that  our  young  friend  would  have  to  pay  dearly  for  his 
inexperience.  We  tried  to  bail  him  out  for  the  night, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         305 

but  the  Inspector  would  not  accept  bail,  so  we  were  forced 
to  leave  him. 

Towneley  then  went  back  to  Mrs.  Jupp's  to  see  if  he 
could  find  Miss  Maitland  and  arrange  matters  with  her. 
She  was  not  there,  but  he  traced  her  to  the  house  of  her 
father,  who  lived  at  Camberwell.  The  father  was  furi- 
ous and  would  not  hear  of  any  intercession  on  Towneley 's 
part.  He  was  a  Dissenter,  and  glad  to  make  the  most  of 
any  scandal  against  a  clergyman;  Towneley,  therefore, 
was  obliged  to  return  unsuccessful. 

Next  morning,  Towneley — who  regarded  Ernest  as  a 
drowning  man,  who  must  be  picked  out  of  the  water 
somehow  or  other  if  possible,  irrespective  of  the  way 
in  which  he  got  into  it — called  on  me,  and  we  put  the 
matter  into  the  hands  of  one  of  the  best  known  attor- 
neys of  the  day.  I  was  greatly  pleased  with  Towneley, 
and  thought  it  due  to  him  to  tell  him  what  I  had  told  no 
one  else.  I  mean  that  Ernest  would  come  into  his  aunt's 
money  in  a  few  years'  time,  and  would  therefore  then 
be  rich. 

Towneley  was  doing  all  he  could  before  this,  but  I 
knew  that  the  knowledge  I  had  imparted  to  him  would 
make  him  feel  as  though  Ernest  was  more  one  of  his  own 
class,  and  had  therefore  a  greater  claim  upon  his  good 
offices.  As  for  Ernest  himself,  his  gratitude  was  greater 
than  could  be  expressed  in  words.  I  have  heard  him 
say  that  he  can  call  to  mind  many  moments,  each  one 
of  which  might  well  pass  for  the  happiest  of  his  life, 
but  that  this  night  stands  clearly  out  as  the  most  painful 
that  he  ever  passed,  yet  so  kind  and  considerate  was 
Towneley  that  it  was  quite  bearable. 

But  with  all  the  best  wishes  in  the  world  neither 
Towneley  nor  I  could  do  much  to  help  beyond  giving  our 
moral  support.  Our  attorney  told  us  that  the  magistrate 
before  whom  Ernest  would  appear  was  very  severe  on 
cases  of  this  description,  and  that  the  fact  of  his  being 
a  clergyman  would  tell  against  him.  "Ask  for  no  re- 


306         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

mand,"  he  said,  "and  make  no  defence.  We  will  call  Mr. 
Pontifex's  rector  and  you  two  gentlemen  as  witnesses  for 
previous  good  character.  These  will  be  enough.  Let  us 
-then  make  a  profound  apology  and  beg  the  magistrate 
to  deal  with  the  case  summarily  instead  of  sending  it  for 
trial.  If  you  can  get  this,  believe  me,  your  young  friend 
will  be  better  out  of  it  than  he  has  any  right  to  expect." 


CHAPTER   LXII 

THIS  advice,  besides  being  obviously  sensible,  would  end 
in  saving  Ernest  both  time  and  suspense  of  mind,  so 
we  had  no  hesitation  in  adopting  it.  The  case  was  called 
on  about  eleven  o'clock,  but  we  got  it  adjourned  till  three, 
so  as  to  give  time  for  Ernest  to  set  his  affairs  as  straight 
as  he  could,  and  to  execute  a  power  of  attorney  enabling 
me  to  act  for  him  as  I  should  think  fit  while  he  was  in 
prison. 

Then  all  came  out  about  Pryer  and  the  College  of 
Spiritual  Pathology.  Ernest  had  even  greater  difficulty 
in  making  a  clean  breast  of  this  than  he  had  had  in 
telling  us  about  Miss  Maitland,  but  he  told  us  all,  and 
the  upshot  was  that  he  had  actually  handed  over  to  Pryer 
every  halfpenny  that  he  then  possessed  with  no  other 
security  than  Pryer's  I.O.U.'s  for  the  amount.  Ernest, 
though  still  declining  to  believe  that  Pryer  could  be 
guilty  of  dishonourable  conduct,  was  becoming  alive  to 
the  folly  of  what  he  had  been  doing;  he  still  made  sure, 
however,  of  recovering,  at  any  rate,  the  greater  part  of 
his  property  as  soon  as  Pryer  should  have  had  time  to 
sell.  Towneley  and  I  were  of  a  different  opinion,  but 
we  did  not  say  what  we  thought. 

It  was  dreary  work  waiting  all  the  morning  amid  such 
unfamiliar  and  depressing  surroundings.  I  thought  how 
the  Psalmist  had  exclaimed  with  quiet  irony,  "One  day 
in  thy  courts  is  better  than  a  thousand,"  and  I  thought 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         307 

that  I  could  utter  a  very  similar  sentiment  in  respect  of 
the  courts  in  which  Towneley  and  I  were  compelled  to 
loiter.  At  last,  about  three  o'clock  the  case  was  called 
on,  and  we  went  round  to  the  part  of  the  court  which 
is  reserved  for  the  general  public,  while  Ernest  was 
taken  into  the  prisoner's  dock.  As  soon  as  he  had  col- 
lected himself  sufficiently  he  recognised  the  magistrate 
as  the  old  gentleman  who  had  spoken  to  him  in  the  train 
on  the  day  he  was  leaving  school,  and  saw,  or  thought  he 
saw,  to  his  great  grief,  that  he  too  was  recognised. 

Mr.  Ottery,  for  this  was  our  attorney's  name,  took  the 
line  he  had  proposed.  He  called  no  other  witnesses  than 
the  rector,  Towneley  and  myself,  and  threw  himself  on 
the  mercy  of  the  magistrate.  When  he  had  concluded,  the 
magistrate  spoke  as  follows :  "Ernest  Pontif ex,  yours  is 
one  of  the  most  painful  cases  that  I  have  ever  had  to 
deal  with.  You  have  been  singularly  favoured  in  your 
parentage  and  education.  You  have  had  before  you  the 
example  of  blameless  parents,  who  doubtless  instilled 
into  you  from  childhood  the  enormity  of  the  offence 
which  by  your  own  confession  you  have  committed.  You 
were  sent  to  one  of  the  best  public  schools  in  England. 
It  is  not  likely  that  in  the  healthy  atmosphere  of  such  a 
school  as  Roughborough  you  can  have  come  across  con- 
taminating influences ;  you  were  probably,  I  may  say  cer- 
tainly, impressed  at  school  with  the  heinousness  of  any 
attempt  to  depart  from  the  strictest  chastity  until  such 
time  as  you  had  entered  into  a  state  of  matrimony.  At 
Cambridge  you  were  shielded  from  impurity  by  every 
obstacle  which  virtuous  and  vigilant  authorities  could  de- 
vise, and  even  had  the  obstacles  been  fewer,  your  parents 
probably  took  care  that  your  means  should  not  admit  of 
your  throwing'  money  away  upon  abandoned  characters. 
At  night  proctors  patrolled  the  street  and  dogged  your 
steps  if  you  tried  to  go  into  any  haunt  where  the  presence 
of  vice  was  suspected.  By  day  the  females  who  were  ad- 
mitted within  the  college  walls  were  selected  mainly  on 


308         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

the  score  of  age  and  ugliness.  It  is  hard  to  see  what 
more  can  be  done  for  any  young  man  than  this.  For  the 
last  four  or  five  months  you  have  been  a  clergyman,  and 
if  a  single  impure  thought  had  still  remained  within  your 
mind,  ordination  should  have  removed  it:  nevertheless, 
not  only  does  it  appear  that  your  mind  is  as  impure  as 
though  none  of  the  influences  to  which  I  have  referred 
had  been  brought  to  bear  upon  it,  but  it  seems  as  though 
their  only  result  had  been  this — that  you  have  not  even 
the  common  sense  to  be  able  to  distinguish  between  a 
respectable  girl  and  a  prostitute. 

"If  I  were  to  take  a  strict  view  of  my  duty  I  should 
commit  you  for  trial,  but  in  consideration  of  this  being 
your  first  offence,  I  shall  deal  leniently  with  you  and  sen- 
tence you  to  imprisonment  with  hard  labour  for  six  calen- 
dar months." 

Towneley  and  I  both  thought  there  was  a  touch  of 
irony  in  the  magistrate's  speech,  and  that  he  could  have 
given  a  lighter  sentence  if  he  would,  but  that  was  neither 
here  nor  there.  We  obtained  leave  to  see  Ernest  for  a 
few  minutes  before  he  was  removed  to  Coldbath  Fields, 
where  he  was  to  serve  his  term,  and  found  him  so  thank- 
ful to  have  been  summarily  dealt  with  that  he  hardly 
seemed  to  care  about  the  miserable  plight  in  which  he 
was  to  pass  the  next  six  months.  When  he  came  out,  he 
said,  he  would  take  what  remained  of  his  money,  go  off 
to  America  or  Australia  and  never  be  heard  of  more. 

We  left  him  full  of  this  resolve,  I,  to  write  to  Theo- 
bald, and  also  to  instruct  my  solicitor  to  get  Ernest's 
money  out  of  Fryer's  hands,  and  Towneley  to  see  the 
reporters  and  keep  the  case  out  of  the  newspapers.  He 
was  successful  as  regards  all  the  higher-class  papers. 
There  was  only  one  journal,  and  that  of  the  lowest  class, 
which  was  incorruptible. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         309 


CHAPTER  LXIII 

I  SAW  my  solicitor  at  once,  but  when  I  tried  to  write  to 
Theobald,  I  found  it  better  to  say  I  would  run  down  and 
see  him.  I  therefore  proposed  this,  asking  him  to  meet 
me  at  the  station,  and  hinting  that  I  must  bring  bad  news 
about  his  son.  I  knew  he  would  not  get  my  letter  more 
than  a  couple  of  hours  before  I  should  see  him,  and 
thought  the  short  interval  of  suspense  might  break  the 
shock  of  what  I  had  to  say. 

Never  do  I  remember  to  have  halted  more  between  two 
opinions  than  on  my  journey  to  Battersby  upon  this  un- 
happy errand.  When  I  thought  of  the  little  sallow-faced 
lad  whom  I  had  remembered  years  before,  of  the  long 
and  savage  cruelty  with  which  he  had  been  treated  in 
childhood — cruelty  none  the  less  real  for  having  been 
due  to  ignorance  and  stupidity  rather  than  to  deliberate 
malice;  of  the  atmosphere  of  lying  and  self-laudatory 
hallucination  in  which  he  had  been  brought  up;  of  the 
readiness  the  boy  had  shown  to  love  anything  that  would 
be  good  enough  to  let  him,  and  of  how  affection  for  his 
parents,  unless  I  am  much  mistaken,  had  only  died  in 
him  because  it  had  been  killed  anew,  again  and  again  and 
again,  each  time  that  it  had  tried  to  spring.  When  I 
thought  of  all  this  I  felt  as  though,  if  the  matter  had 
rested  with  me,  I  would  have  sentenced  Theobald  and 
Christina  to  mental  suffering  even  more  severe  than  that 
which  was  about  to  fall  upon  them.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  when  I  thought  of  Theobald's  own  childhood,  of 
that  dreadful  old  George  Pontifex  his  father,  of  John 
and  Mrs.  John,  and  of  his  two  sisters,  when  again  I 
thought  of  Christina's  long  years  of  hope  deferred  that 
maketh  the  heart  sick,  before  she  was  married,  of  the  life 
she  must  have  led  at  Crampsford,  and  of  the  surround- 
ings in  the  midst  of  which  she  and  her  husband  both 
lived  at  Battersby,  I  felt  as  though  the  wonder  was  that 


3io         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

misfortunes  so  persistent  had  not  been  followed  by  even 
graver  retribution. 

Poor  people !  They  had  tried  to  keep  their  ignorance 
of  the  world  from  themselves  by  calling  it  the  pursuit  of 
heavenly  things,  and  then  shutting  their  eyes  to  anything 
that  might  give  them  trouble.  A  son  having  been  born 
to  them  they  had  shut  his  eyes  also  as  far  as  was  prac- 
ticable. Who  could  blame  them  ?  They  had  chapter  and 
verse  for  everything  they  had  either  done  or  left  undone ; 
there  is  no  better  thumbed  precedent  than  that  for  being 
a  clergyman  and  a  clergyman's  wife.  In  what  respect 
had  they  differed  from  their  neighbours  ?  How  did  their 
household  differ  from  that  of  any  other  clergyman  of 
the  better  sort  from  one  end  of  England  to  the  other? 
Why  then  should  it  have  been  upon  them,  of  all  people 
in  the  world,  that  this  tower  of  Siloam  had  fallen  ? 

Surely  it  was  the  tower  of  Siloam  that  was  naught 
rather  than  those  who  stood  under  it;  it  was  the  system 
rather  than  the  people  that  was  at  fault.  If  Theobald 
and  his  wife  had  but  known  more  of  the  world  and  of 
the  things  that  are  therein,  they  would  have  done  little 
harm  to  anyone.  Selfish  they  would  have  always  been, 
but  not  more  so  than  may  very  well  be  pardoned,  and  not 
more  than  other  people  would  be.  As  it  was,  the  case 
was  hopeless ;  it  would  be  no  use  their  even  entering  into 
their  mothers'  wombs  and  being  born  again.  They  must 
not  only  be  born  again  but  they  must  be  born  again  each 
one  of  them  of  a  new  father  and  of  a  new  mother  and  of 
a  different  line  of  ancestry  for  many  generations  before 
their  minds  could  become  supple  enough  to  learn  anew. 
The  only  thing  to  do  with  them  was  to  humour  them 
and  make  the  best  of  them  till  they  died — and  be  thank- 
ful when  they  did  so. 

Theobald  got  my  letter  as  I  had  expected,  and  met  me 
at  the  station  nearest  to  Battersby.  As  I  walked  back 
with  him  towards  his  own  house  I  broke  the  news  to  him 
as  gently  as  I  could.  I  pretended  that  the  whole  thing 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         311 

was  in  great  measure  a  mistake,  and  that  though  Ernest 
no  doubt  had  had  intentions  which  he  ought  to  have  re- 
sisted, he  had  not  meant  going  anything  like  the  length 
which  Miss  Maitland  supposed.  I  said  we  had  felt  how 
much  appearances  were  against  him,  and  had  not  dared 
to  set  up  this  defence  before  the  magistrate,  though  we 
had  no  doubt  about  its  being  the  true  one. 

Theobald  acted  with  a  readier  and  acuter  moral  sense 
than  I  had  given  him  credit  for. 

"I  will  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  him,"  he  ex- 
claimed promptly.  "I  will  never  see  his  face  again  ;  do  not 
let  him  write  either  to  me  or  to  his  mother;  we  know 
of  no  such  person.  Tell  him  you  have  seen  me,  and  that 
from  this  day  forward  I  shall  put  him  out  of  my  mind  as 
though  he  had  never  been  born.  I  have  been  a  good 
father  to  him,  and  his  mother  idolised  him ;  selfishness  and 
ingratitude  have  been  the  only  return  we  have  ever  had 
from  him ;  my  hope  henceforth  must  be  in  my  remaining 
children." 

I  told  him  how  Ernest's  fellow  curate  had  got  hold  of 
his  money,  and  hinted  that  he  might  very  likely  be  penni- 
less, or  nearly  so,  on  leaving  prison.  Theobald  did  not 
seem  displeased  at  this,  but  added  soon  afterwards :  "If 
this  proves  to  be  the  case,  tell  him  from  me  that  I  will 
give  him  a  hundred  pounds  if  he  will  tell  me  through  you 
when  he  will  have  it  paid,  but  tell  him  not  to  write  and 
thank  me,  and  say  that  if  he  attempts  to  open  up  direct 
communication  either  with  his  mother  or  myself,  he  shall 
not  have  a  penny  of  the  money." 

Knowing  what  I  knew,  and  having  determined  on  vio- 
lating Miss  Pontifex's  instructions  should  the  occasion 
arise,  I  did  not  think  Ernest  would  be  any  the  worse  for 
a  complete  estrangement  from  his  family,  so  I  acquiesced 
more  readily  in  what  Theobald  had  proposed  than  that 
gentleman  may  have  expected. 

Thinking  it  better  that  I  should  not  see  Christina,  I  left 
Theobald  near  Battersby  and  walked  back  to  the  station. 


312         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

On  my  way  I  was  pleased  to  reflect  that  Ernest's  father 
was  less  of  a  fool  than  I  had  taken  him  to  be,  and  had 
the  greater  hopes,  therefore,  that  his  son's  blunders  might 
be  due  to  postnatal,  rather  than  congenital  misfortunes. 
Accidents  which  happen  to  a  man  before  he  is  born,  in 
the  persons  of  his  ancestors,  will,  if  he  remembers  them 
at  all,  leave  an  indelible  impression  on  him;  they  will 
have  moulded  his  character  so  that,  do  what  he  will,  it 
is  hardly  possible  for  him  to  escape  their  consequences. 
If  a  man  is  to  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  he  must 
do  so,  not  only  as  a  little  child,  but  as  a  little  embryo,  or 
rather  as  a  little  zoosperm — and  not  only  this,  but  as  one 
that  has  come  of  zoosperms  which  have  entered  into  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  before  him  for  many  generations. 
Accidents  which  occur  for  the  first  time,  and  belong  to 
the  period  since  a  man's  last  birth,  are  not,  as  a  general 
rule,  so  permanent  in  their  effects,  though  of  course  they 
may  sometimes  be  so.  At  any  rate,  I  was  not  displeased 
at  the  view  which  Ernest's  father  took  of  the  situation. 


+      CHAPTER   LXIV 

AFTER  Ernest  had  been  sentenced,  he  was  taken  back  to 
the  cells  to  wait  for  the  van  which  should  take  him  to 
Coldbath  Fields,  where  he  was  to  serve  his  term. 

He  was  still  too  stunned  and  dazed  by  the  suddenness 
with  which  events  had  happened  during  the  last  twenty- 
four  hours  to  be  able  to  realise  his  position.  A  great 
chasm  had  opened  between  his  past  and  future;  never- 
theless he  breathed,  his  pulse  beat,  he  could  think  and 
speak.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  ought  to  be  prostrated 
by  the  blow  that  had  fallen  on  him,  but  he  was  not  pros- 
trated; he  had  suffered  from  many  smaller  laches  far 
more  acutely.  It  was  not  until  he  thought  of  the  pain 
his  disgrace  would  inflict  on  his  father  and  mother  that 
he  felt  how  readily  he  would  have  given  up  all  he  had, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         313 

rather  than  have  fallen  into  his  present  plight.  It  would 
break  his  mother's  heart.  It  must,  he  knew  it  would — 
and  it  was  he  who  had  done  this. 

He  had  had  a  headache  coming  on  all  the  forenoon, 
but  as  he  thought  of  his  father  and  mother,  his  pulse 
quickened,  and  the  pain  in  his  head  suddenly  became 
intense.  He  could  hardly  walk  to  the  van,  and  he  found 
its  motion  insupportable.  On  reaching  the  prison  he 
was  too  ill  to  walk  without  assistance  across  the  hall  to 
the  corridor  or  gallery  where  prisoners  are  marshalled 
on  their  arrival.  The  prison  warder,  seeing  at  once  that 
he  was  a  clergyman,  did  not  suppose  he  was  shamming, 
as  he  might  have  done  in  the  case  of  an  old  gaol-bird; 
he  therefore  sent  for  the  doctor.  When  this  gentleman 
arrived,  Ernest  was  declared  to  be  suffering  from  an 
incipient  attack  of  brain  fever,  and  was  taken  away  to 
the  infirmary.  Here  he  hovered  for  the  next  two  months 
between  life  and  death,  never  in  full  possession  of  his 
reason  and  often  delirious,  but  at  last,  contrary  to  the 
expectation  of  both  doctor  and  nurse,  he  began  slowly 
to  recover. 

It  is  said  that  those  who  have  been  nearly  drowned 
find  the  return  to  consciousness  much  more  painful  than 
the  loss  of  it  had  been,  and  so  it  was  with  my  hero. 
As  he  lay  helpless  and  feeble,  it  seemed  to  him  a  refine- 
ment of  cruelty  that  he  had  not  died  once  for  all  during 
his  delirium.  He  thought  he  should  still  most  likely  re- 
cover only  to  sink  a  little  later  on  from  shame  and  sor- 
row; nevertheless  from  day  to  day  he  mended,  though 
so  slowly  that  he  could  hardly  realise  it  to  himself. 
One  afternoon,  however,  about  three  weeks  after  he  had 
regained  consciousness,  the  nurse  who  tended  him,  and 
who  had  been  very  kind  to  him,  made  some  little  rallying 
sally  which  amused  him;  he  laughed,  and  as  he  did  so 
she  clapped  her  hands  and  told  him  he  would  be  a  man 
again.  The  spark  of  hope  was  kindled,  and  again  he 
wished  to  live.  Almost  from  that  moment  his  thoughts 


314         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

began  to  turn  less  to  the  horrors  of  the  past,  and  more 
to  the  best  way  of  meeting  the  future. 

His  worst  pain  was  on  behalf  of  his  father  and 
mother,  and  how  he  should  again  face  them.  It  still 
seemed  to  him  that  the  best  thing  both  for  him  and  them 
would  be  that  he  should  sever  himself  from  them  com- 
pletely, take  whatever  money  he  could  recover  from 
Pryer,  and  go  to  some  place  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
earth,  where  he  should  never  meet  anyone  who  had 
known  him  at  school  or  college,  and  start  afresh.  Or 
perhaps  he  might  go  to  the  gold  fields  in  California 
or  Australia,  of  which  such  wonderful  accounts  were 
then  heard ;  there  he  might  even  make  his  fortune,  and 
return  as  an  old  man  many  years  hence,  unknown  to 
everyone,  and  if  so,  he  would  live  at  Cambridge.  As  he 
built  these  castles  in  the  air,  the  spark  of  life  became  a 
flame,  and  he  longed  for  health,  and  for  the  freedom 
which,  now  that  so  much  of  his  sentence  had  expired,  was 
not  after  all  very  far  distant. 

Then  things  began  to  shape  themselves  more  definitely. 
Whatever  happened  he  would  be  a  clergyman  no  longer. 
It  would  have  been  practically  impossible  for  him  to  have 
found  another  curacy,  even  if  he  had  been  so  minded,  but 
he  was  not  so  minded.  He  hated  the  life  he  had  been 
leading  ever  since  he  had  begun  to  read  for  orders;  he 
could  not  argue  about  it,  but  simply  he  loathed  it  and 
would  have  no  more  of  it.  As  he  dwelt  on  the  prospect 
of  becoming  a  layman  again,  however  disgraced,  he  re- 
joiced at  what  had  befallen  him,  and  found  a  blessing  in 
this  very  imprisonment  which  had  at  first  seemed  such 
an  unspeakable  misfortune. 

Perhaps  the  shock  of  so  great  a  change  in  his  sur- 
roundings had  accelerated  changes  in  his  opinions,  just 
as  the  cocoons  of  silkworms,  when  sent  in  baskets  by 
rail,  hatch  before  their  time  through  the  novelty  of  heat 
and  jolting.  But  however  this  may  be,  his  belief  in 
the  stories  concerning  the  Death,  Resurrection  and  Ascen- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         315 

sion  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  hence  his  faith  in  all  the  other 
Christian  miracles,  had  dropped  off  him  once  and  for 
ever.  The  investigation  he  had  made  in  consequence  of 
Mr.  Shaw's  rebuke,  hurried  though  it  was,  had  left  a 
deep  impression  upon  him,  and  now  he  was  well  enough 
to  read  he  made  the  New  Testament  his  chief  study, 
going  through  it  in  the  spirit  which  Mr.  Shaw  had  de- 
sired of  him,  that  is  to  say  as  one  who  wished  neither 
to  believe  nor  disbelieve,  but  cared  only  about  finding 
out  whether  he  ought  to  believe  or  no.  The  more  he 
read  in  this  spirit  the  more  the  balance  seemed  to  lie 
in  favour  of  unbelief,  till,  in  the  end,  all  further  doubt 
became  impossible,  and  he  saw  plainly  enough  that,  what- 
ever else  might  be  true,  the  story  that  Christ  had  died, 
come  to  life  again,  and  been  carried  from  earth  through 
clouds  into  the  heavens  could  not  now  be  accepted  by 
unbiassed  people.  It  was  well  he  had  found  it  out  so 
soon.  In  one  way  or  another  it  was  sure  to  meet  him 
sooner  or  later.  He  would  probably  have  seen  it  years 
ago  if  he  had  not  been  hoodwinked  by  people  who  were 
paid  for  hoodwinking  him.  What  should  he  have  done, 
he  asked  himself,  if  he  had  not  made  his  present  dis- 
covery till  years  later,  when  he  was  more  deeply  com- 
mitted to  the  life  of  a  clergyman  ?  Should  he  have  had 
the  courage  to  face  it,  or  would  he  not  more  probably 
have  evolved  some  excellent  reason  for  continuing  to 
think  as  he  had  thought  hitherto?  Should  he  have  had 
the  courage  to  break  away  even  from  his  present  curacy  ? 
He  thought  not,  and  knew  not  whether  to  be  more 
thankful  for  having  been  shown  his  error  or  for  having 
been  caught  up  and  twisted  round  so  that  he  could  hardly 
err  farther,  almost  at  the  very  moment  of  his  having  dis- 
covered it.  The  price  he  had  had  to  pay  for  this  boon 
was  light  as  compared  with  the  boon  itself.  What  is  too 
heavy  a  price  to  pay  for  having  duty  made  at  once  clear 
and  easy  of  fulfilment  instead  of  very  difficult?  He  was 
sorry  for  his  father  and  mother,  and  he  was  sorry  for 


316         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Miss  Maitland,  but  he  was  no  longer  sorry  for  him- 
self. 

It  puzzled  him,  however,  .that  he  should  not  have 
known  how  much  he  had  hated  being  a  clergyman  till 
now.  He  knew  that  he  did  not  particularly  like  it,  but  if 
anyone  had  asked  him  whether  he  actually  hated  it,  he 
would  have  answered  no.  I  suppose  people  almost  al- 
ways want  something  external  to  themselves,  to  reveal 
to  them  their  own  likes  and  dislikes.  Our  most  assured 
likings  have  for  the  most  part  been  arrived  at  neither 
by  introspection  nor  by  any  process  of  conscious  reason- 
ing, but  by  the  bounding  forth  of  the  heart  to  welcome 
the  gospel  proclaimed  to  it  by  another.  We  hear  some 
say  that  such  and  such  a  thing  is  thus  or  thus,  and  in  a 
moment  the  train  that  has  been  laid  within  us,  but  whose 
presence  we  knew  not,  flashes  into  consciousness  and  per- 
ception. 

Only  a  year  ago  he  had  bounded  forth  to  welcome  Mr. 
Hawke's  sermon;  since  then  he  had  bounded  after  a 
College  of  Spiritual  Pathology;  now  he  was  in  full  cry 
after  rationalism  pure  and  simple ;  how  could  he  be  sure 
that  his  present  state  of  mind  would  be  more  lasting  than 
his  previous  ones?  He  could  not  be  certain,  but  he  felt 
as  though  he  were  now  on  firmer  ground  than  he  had 
ever  been  before,  and  no  matter  how  fleeting  his  present 
opinions  might  prove  to  be,  he  could  not  but  act  accord- 
ing to  them  till  he  saw  reason  to  change  them.  How 
impossible,  he  reflected,  it  would  have  been  for  him  to  do 
this,  if  he  had  remained  surrounded  by  people  like  his 
father  and  mother,  or  Pryer  and  Fryer's  friends,  and 
his  rector.  He  had  been  observing,  reflecting,  and  as- 
similating all  these  months  with  no  more  consciousness 
of  mental  growth  than  a  school-boy  has  of  growth'  of 
body,  but  should  he  have  been  able  to  admit  his  growth 
to  himself,  and  to  act  up  to  his  increased  strength  if  he 
had  remained  in  constant  close  connection  with  people 
who  assured  him  solemnly  that  he  was  under  a  hallucina- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         317 

tion?  The  combination  against  him  \yas  greater  than 
his  unaided  strength  could  have  broken  through,  and  he 
felt  doubtful  how  far  any  shock  less  severe  than  the 
one  from  which  he  was  suffering  would  have  sufficed  to 
free  him. 

CHAPTER   LXV 

As  he  lay  on  his  bed  day  after  day  slowly  recovering,  he 
woke  up  to  the  fact  which  most  men  arrive  at  sooner  or 
later,  I  mean  that  very  few  care  two  straws  about  truth, 
or  have  any  confidence  that  it  is  righter  and  better  to 
believe  what  is  true  than  what  is  untrue,  even  though 
belief  in  the  untruth  may  seem  at  first  sight  most  ex- 
pedient. Yet  it  is  only  these  few  who  can  be  said  to 
believe  anything  at  all ;  the  rest  are  simply  unbelievers  in 
disguise.  Perhaps,  after  all,  these  last  are  right.  They 
have  numbers  and  prosperity  on  their  side.  They  have 
all  which  the  rationalist  appeals  to  as  his  tests  of  right 
and  wrong.  Right,  according  to  him,  is  what  seems  right 
to  the  majority  of  sensible,  well-to-do  people ;  we  know 
of  no  safer  criterion  than  this,  but  what  does  the  decision 
thus  arrived  at  involve?  Simply  this,  that  a  conspiracy 
of  silence  about  things  whose  truth  would  be  immediately 
apparent  to  disinterested  enquirers  is  not  only  tolerable 
but  righteous  on  the  part  of  those  who  profess  to  be 
and  take  money  for  being  par  excellence  guardians  and 
teachers  of  truth. 

Ernest  saw  no  logical  escape  from  this  conclusion. 
He  saw  that  belief  on  the  part  of  the  early  Christians 
in  the  miraculous  nature  of  Christ's  Resurrection  was 
explicable,  without  any  supposition  of  miracle.  The  ex- 
planation lay  under  the  eyes  of  anyone  who  chose  to 
take  a  moderate  degree  of  trouble ;  it  had  been  put  before 
the  world  again  and  again,  and  there  had  been  no  serious 
attempt  to  refute  it.  How  was  it  that  Dean  Alford,  for 
example,  who  had  made  the  New  Testament  his  specialty, 


3i8         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

could  not  or  would  not  see  what  was  so  obvious  to 
Ernest  himself?  Could  it  be  for  any  other  reason  than 
that  he  did  not  want  to  see  it,  and  if  so  was  he  not  a 
traitor  to  the  cause  of  truth?  Yes,  but  was  he  not 
also  a  respectable  and  successful  man,  and  were  not  the 
vast  majority  of  respectable  and  successful  men,  such 
for  example,  as  all  the  bishops  and  archbishops,  doing 
exactly  as  Dean  Alford  did,  and  did  not  this  make  their 
action  right,  no  matter  though  it  had  been  cannibalism 
or  infanticide,  or  even  habitual  untruth  fulness  of  mind? 

Monstrous,  odious  falsehood !  Ernest's  feeble  pulse 
quickened  and  his  pale  face  flushed  as  this  hateful  view 
of  life  presented  itself  to  him  in  all  its  logical  consistency. 
It  was  not  the  fact  of  most  men  being  liars  that  shocked 
him — that  was  all  right  enough ;  but  even  the  momentary 
doubt  whether  the  few  who  were  not  liars  ought  not  to 
become  liars  too.  There  was  no  hope  left  if  this  were  so  ; 
if  this  were  so,  let  him  die,  the  sooner  the  better.  "Lord," 
he  exclaimed  inwardly,  "I  don't  believe  one  word  of  it. 
Strengthen  Thou  and  confirm  my  disbelief."  It  seemed 
to  him  that  he  could  never  henceforth  see  a  bishop  going 
to  consecration  without  saying  to  himself :  "There,  but 
for  the  grace  of  God,  went  Ernest  Pontifex."  It  was  no 
doing  of  his.  He  could  not  boast ;  if  he  had  lived  in  the 
time  of  Christ  he  might  himself  have  been  an  early  Chris- 
tian, or  even  an  Apostle  for  aught  he  knew.  On  the 
whole,  he  felt  that  he  had  much  to  be  thankful  for. 

The  conclusion,  then,  that  it  might  be  better  to  believe 
error  than  truth,  should  be  ordered  out  of  court  at  once, 
no  matter  by  how  clear  a  logic  it  had  been  arrived  at ;  but 
what  was  the  alternative  ?  It  was  this,  that  our  criterion 
of  truth — i.e.  that  truth  is  what  commends  itself  to  the 
great  majority  of  sensible  and  successful  people — is  not 
infallible.  The  rule  is  sound,  and  covers  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  cases,  but  it  has  its  exceptions. 

He  asked  himself,  what  were  they?  Ah!  that  was  a 
difficult  matter ;  there  were  so  many,  and  the  rules  which 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         319 

governed  them  were  sometimes  so  subtle  that  mistakes 
always  had  and  always  would  be  made;  it  was  just  this 
that  made  it  impossible  to  reduce  life  to  an  exact  science. 
There  was  a  rough-and-ready,  rule-of-thumb  test  of  truth, 
and  a  number  of  rules  as  regards  exceptions  which  could 
be  mastered  without  much  trouble,  yet  there  was  a  resi- 
due of  cases  in  which  decision  was  difficult — so  difficult 
that  a  man  had  better  follow  his  instinct  than  attempt  to 
decide  them  by  any  process  of  reasoning. 

Instinct  then  is  the  ultimate  court  of  appeal.  And 
what  is  instinct?  It  is  a  mode  of  faith  in  the  evidence 
of  things  not  actually  seen.  And  so  my  hero  returned 
almost  to  the  point  from  which  he  had  started  originally, 
namely,  that  the  just  shall  live  by  faith. 

And  this  is  what  the  just — that  is  to  say  reasonable 
people — do  as  regards  those  daily  affairs  of  life  which 
most  concern  them.  They  settle  smaller  matters  by  the 
exercise  of  their  own  deliberation.  More  important  ones, 
such  as  the  cure  of  their  own  bodies  and  the  bodies  of 
those  whom  they  love,  the  investment  of  their  money, 
the  extrication  of  their  affairs  from  any.  serious  mess — 
these  things  they  generally  entrust  to  others  of  whose 
capacity  they  know  little  save  from  general  report ;  they 
act  therefore  on  the  strength  of  faith,  not  of  knowledge. 
So  the  English  nation  entrusts  the  welfare  of  its  fleet  and 
naval  defences  to  a  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  who,  not 
being  a  sailor,  can  know  nothing  about  these  matters  ex- 
cept by  acts  of  faith.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  faith' 
and  not  reason  being  the  ultima  ratio. 

Even  Euclid,  who  has  laid  himself  as  little  open  to  the 
charge  of  credulity  as  any  writer  who  ever  lived,  can- 
not get  beyond  this.  He  has  no  demonstrable  first  prem- 
ise. He  requires  postulates  and  axioms  which  tran- 
cend  demonstration,  and  without  which  he  can  do  noth- 
ing. His  superstructure  indeed  is  demonstration,  but  his 
ground  is  faith.  Nor  again  can  he  get  further  than  tell- 
ing a  man  he  is  a  fool  if  he  persists  in  differing  from 


32O         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

him.  He  says  "which  is  absurd,"  and  declines  to  discuss 
the  matter  further.  Faith  and  authority,  therefore,  prove 
to  be  as  necessary  for  him  as  for  anyone  else.  "By  faith 
in  what,  then,"  asked  Ernest  of  himself,  "shall  a  just  man 
endeavour  to  live  at  this  present  time?"  He  answered 
to  himself,  "At  any  rate  not  by  faith  in  the  supernatural 
element  of  the  Christian  religion." 

And  how  should  he  best  persuade  his  fellow-country- 
men to  leave  off  believing  in  this  supernatural  element? 
Looking  at  the  matter  from  a  practical  point  of  view,  he 
thought  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  afforded  the  most 
promising  key  to  the  situation.  It  lay  between  him  and 
the  Pope.  The  Pope  was  perhaps  best  in  theory,  but  in 
practice  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  would  do  suffi- 
ciently well.  If  he  could  only  manage  to  sprinkle  a  pinch 
of  salt,  as  it  were,  on  the  Archbishop's  tail,  he  might  con- 
vert the  whole  Church  of  England  to  free  thought  by  a 
coup  de  main.  There  must  be  an  amount  of  cogency 
which  even  an  Archbishop — an  Archbishop  whose  per- 
ceptions had  never  been  quickened  by  imprisonment  for 
assault — would  not  be  able  to  withstand.  When  brought 
face  to  face  with  the  facts,  as  he,  Ernest,  could  arrange 
them,  his  Grace  would  have  no  resource  but  to  admit 
them ;  being  an  honourable  man  he  would  at  once  resign 
his  Archbishopric,  and  Christianity  would  become  extinct 
in  England  within  a  few  months'  time.  This,  at  any  rate, 
was  how  things  ought  to  be.  But  all  the  time  Ernest  had 
no  confidence  in  the  Archbishop's  not  hopping  off  just 
as  the  pinch  was  about  to  fall  on  him,  and  this  seemed 
so  unfair  that  his  blood  boiled  at  the  thought  of  it.  If 
this  was  to  be  so,  he  must  try  if  he  could  not  fix  him  by 
the  judicious  use  of  bird-lime  or  a  snare,  or  throw  the 
salt  on  his  tail  from  an  ambuscade. 

To  do  him  justice,  it  was  not  himself  that  he  greatly 
cared  about.  He  knew  he  had  been  humbugged,  and  he 
knew  also  that  the  greater  part  of  the  ills  which  had 
afflicted  him  were  due,  indirectly,  in  chief  measure  to 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         321 

the  influence  of  Christian  teaching;  still,  if  the  mischief 
had  ended  with  himself,  he  should  have  thought  little 
about  it,  but  there  was  his  sister,  and  his  brother  Joey, 
and  the  hundreds  and  thousands  of  young  people  through- 
out England  whose  lives  were  being  blighted  through 
the  lies  told  them  by  people  whose  business  it  was  to 
know  better,  but  who  scamped  their  work  and  shirked 
difficulties  instead  of  facing  them.  It  was  this  which 
made  him  think  it  worth  while  to  be  angry,  and  to  con- 
sider whether  he  could  not  at  least  do  something  towards 
saving  others  from  such  years  of  waste  and  misery  as  he 
had  had  to  pass  himself.  If  there  was  no  truth  in  the 
miraculous  accounts  of  Christ's  Death  and  Resurrection, 
the  whole  of  the  religion  founded  upon  the  historic  truth 
of  those  events  tumbled  to  the  ground.  "Why,"  he  ex- 
claimed, with  all  the  arrogance  of  youth,  "they  put  a 
gipsy  or  fortune-teller  into  prison  for  getting  money  out 
of  silly  people  who  think  they  have  supernatural  power; 
why  should  they  not  put  a  clergyman  in  prison  for  pre- 
tending that  he  can  absolve  sins,  or  turn  bread  and  wine 
into  the  flesh  and  blood  of  One  who  died  two  thousand 
years  ago?  What,"  he  asked  himself,  "could  be  more 
pure  'hanky-panky'  than  that  a  bishop  should  lay  his 
hands  upon  a  young  man  and  pretend  to  convey  to  him 
the  spiritual  power  to  work  this  miracle  ?  It  was  all  very 
well  to  talk  about  toleration ;  toleration,  like  everything 
else,  had  its  limits ;  besides,  if  it  was  to  include  the  bishop, 
let  it  include  the  fortune-teller  too."  He  would  explain 
all  this  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  by  and  by,  but  as 
he  ceuld  not  get  hold  of  him  just  now,  it  occurred  to  him 
that  he  might  experimentalise  advantageously  upon  the 
viler  soul  of  the  prison  chaplain.  It  was  only  those  who 
took  the  first  and  most  obvious  step  in  their  power  who 
ever  did  great  things  in  the  end,  so  one  day,  when  Mr. 
Hughes — for  this  was  the  chaplain's  name — was  talking 
with  him,  Ernest  introduced  the  question  of  Christian 
evidences,  and  tried  to  raise  a  discussion  upon  them. 


322         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Mr.  Hughes  had  been  very  kind  to  him,  but  he  was  more 
than  twice  my  hero's  age,  and  had  long  taken  the  measure 
of  such  objections  as  Ernest  tried  to  put  before  him.  I 
do  not  suppose  he  believed  in  the  actual  objective  truth 
of  the  stories  about  Christ's  Resurrection  and  Ascension 
any  more  than  Ernest  did,  but  he  knew  that  this  was  a 
small  matter,  and  that  the  real  issue  lay  much  deeper  than 
this. 

Mr.  Hughes  was  a  man  who  had  been  in  authority  for 
many  years,  and  he  brushed  Ernest  on  one  side  as  if  he 
had  been  a  fly.  He  did  it  so  well  that  my  hero  never 
ventured  to  tackle  him  again,  and  confined  his  conversa- 
tion with  him  for  the  future  to  such  matters  as  what  he 
had  better  do  when  he  got  out  of  prison;  and  here  Mr. 
Hughes  was  ever  ready  to  listen  to  him  with  sympathy 
and  kindness. 


CHAPTER   LXVI 

ERNEST  was  now  so  far  convalescent  as  to  be  able  to  sit 
up  for  the  greater  part  of  the  day.  He  had  been  three 
months  in  prison,  and,  though  not  strong  enough  to 
leave  the  infirmary,  was  beyond  all  fear  of  a  relapse. 
He  was  talking  one  day  with  Mr.  Hughes  about  his 
future,  and  again  expressed  his  intention  of  emigrating 
to  Australia  or  New  Zealand  with  the  money  he  should 
recover  from  Pryer.  Whenever  he  spoke  of  this  he  no- 
ticed that  Mr.  Hughes  looked  grave '-and  was  silent:  he 
had  thought  that  perhaps  the  chaplain  wanted  him  to 
return  to  his  profession,  and  disapproved  of  his  evident 
anxiety  to  turn  to  something  else;  now,  however,  he 
asked  Mr.  Hughes  point  blank  why  it  was  that  he  disap- 
proved of  his  idea  of  emigrating. 

Mr.  Hughes  endeavoured  to  evade  him,  but  Ernest  was 
not  to  be  put  off.  There  was  something  in  the  chaplain's 
manner  which  suggested  that  he  knew  more  than  Ernest 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         323 

did,  but  did  not  like  to  say  it.  This  alarmed  him  so  much 
that  he  begged  him  not  to  keep  him  in  suspense ;  after  a 
little  hesitation  Mr.  Hughes,  thinking  him  now  strong 
enough  to  stand  it,  broke  the  news  as  gently  as  he  could 
that  the  whole  of  Ernest's  money  had  disappeared. 

The  day  after  my  return  from  Battersby  I  called  on 
my  solicitor,  and  was  told  that  he  had  written  to  Pryer, 
requiring  him  to  refund  the  monies  for  which  he  had 
given  his  I.O.U.'s.  Pryer  replied  that  he  had  given 
orders  to  his  broker  to  close  his  operations,  which  un- 
fortunately had  resulted  so  far  in  heavy  loss,  and  that 
the  balance  should  be  paid  to  my  solicitor  on  the  following 
settling  day,  then  about  a  week  distant.  When  the  time 
came,  we  heard  nothing  from  Pryer,  and  going  to  his 
lodgings,  found  that  he  had  left  with  his  few  effects  on 
the  very  day  after  he  had  heard  from  us,  and  had  not 
been  seen  since. 

I  had  heard  from  Ernest  the  name  of  the  broker  who 
had  been  employed,  and  went  at  once  to  see  him.  He 
told  me  Pryer  had  closed  all  his  accounts  for  cash  on 
the  day  that  Ernest  had  been  sentenced,  and  had  received 
£2315,  which  was  all  that  remained  of  Ernest's  original 
£5000.  With  this  he  had  decamped,  nor  had  we  enough 
clue  as  to  his  whereabouts  to  be  able  to  take  any  steps 
to  recover  the  money.  There  was  in  fact  nothing  to  be 
done  but  to  consider  the  whole  as  lost.  I  may  say  here 
that  neither  I  nor  Ernest  ever  heard  of  Pryer  again,  nor 
have  any  idea  what  became  of  him. 

This  placed  me  in  a  difficult  position.  I  knew,  of 
course,  that  in  a  few  years  Ernest  would  have  many 
times  over  as  much  money  as  he  had  lost,  but  I  knew  also 
that  he  did  not  know  this,  and  feared  that  the  supposed 
loss  of  all  he  had  in  the  world  might  be  more  than  he 
could  stand  when  coupled  with  his  other  misfortunes. 

The  prison  authorities  had  found  Theobald's  address 
from  a  letter  in  Ernest's  pocket,  and  had  communicated 
with  him  more  than  once  concerning  his  son's  illness,  but 


324         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Theobald  had  not  written  to  me,  and  I  supposed  my  god- 
son to  be  in  good  health.  He  would  be  just  twenty-four 
years  old  when  he  left  prison,  and  if  I  followed  out  his 
aunt's  instructions,  would  have  to  battle  with  fortune 
for  another  four  years  as  well  as  he  could.  The  question 
before  me  was  whether  it  was  right  to  let  him  run  so 
much  risk,  or  whether  I  should  not  to  some  extent  trans- 
gress my  instructions — which  there  was  nothing  to  pre- 
vent my  doing  if  I  thought  Miss  Pontifex  would  have 
wished  it — and  let  him  have  the  same  sum  that  he  would 
have  recovered  from  Pryer. 

If  my  godson  had  been  an  older  man,  and  more  fixed 
in  any  definite  groove,  this  is  what  I  should  have  done, 
but  he  was  still  very  young,  and  more  than  commonly 
unformed  for  his  age.  If,  again,  I  had  known  of  his 
illness  I  should  not  have  dared  to  lay  any  heavier  burden 
on  his  back  than  he  had  to  bear  already;  but  not  being 
uneasy  about  his  health,  I  thought  a  few  years  of  rough- 
ing it  and  of  experience  concerning  the  importance  of 
not  playing  tricks  with  money  would  do  him  no  harm. 
So  I  decided  to  keep  a  sharp  eye  upon  him  as  soon  as 
he  came  out  of  prison,  and  to  let  him  splash  about  in 
deep  water  as  best  he  could  till  I  saw  whether  he  was 
able  to  swim,  or  was  about  to  sink.  In  the  first  case  I 
would  let  him  go  on  swimming  till  he  was  nearly  eight- 
and-twenty,  when  I  would  prepare  him  gradually  for  the 
good  fortune  that  awaited  him;  in  the  second  I  would 
hurry  up  to  the  rescue.  So  I  wrote  to  say  that  Pryer  had 
absconded,  and  that  he  could  have  £100  from  his  father 
when  he  came  out  of  prison.  I  then  waited  to  see  what 
effect  these  tidings  would  have,  not  expecting  to  receive 
an  answer  for  three  months,  for  I  had  been  told  on  en- 
quiry that  no  letter  could  be  received  by  a  prisoner  till 
after  he  had  been  three  months  in  gaol.  I  also  wrote  to 
Theobald  and  told  him  of  Pryer's  disappearance. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  when  my  letter  arrived  the  gover- 
nor of  the  gaol  read  it,  and  in  a  case  of  such  importance 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         325 

would  have  relaxed  the  rules  if  Ernest's  state  had  allowed 
it;  his  illness  prevented  this,  and  the  governor  left  it  to 
the  chaplain  and  the  doctor  to  break  the  news  to  him 
when  they  thought  him  strong  enough  to  bear  it,  which 
was  now  the  case.  In  the  meantime  I  received  a  formal 
official  document  saying  that  my  letter  had  been  received 
and  would  be  communicated  to  the  prisoner  in  due 
course;  I  believe  it  was  simply  through  a  mistake  on 
the  part  of  a  clerk  that  I  was  not  informed  of  Ernest's 
illness,  but  I  heard  nothing  of  it  till  I  saw  him  by  his  own 
desire  a  few  days  after  the  chaplain  had  broken  to  him 
the  substance  of  what  I  had  written. 

Ernest  was  terribly  shocked  when  he  heard  of  the 
loss  of  his  money,  but  his  ignorance  of  the  world  pre- 
vented him  from  seeing  the  full  extent  of  the  mischief. 
He  had  never  been  in  serious  want  of  money  yet,  and 
did  not  know  what  it  meant.  In  reality,  money  losses 
are  the  hardest  to  bear  of  any  by  those  who  are  old 
enough  to  comprehend  them. 

A  man  can  stand  being  told  that  he  must  submit  to  a 
severe  surgical  operation,  or  that  he  has  some  disease 
which  will  shortly  kill  him,  or  that  he  will  be  a  cripple  or 
blind  for  the  rest  of  his  life;  dreadful  as  such  tidings 
must  be,  we  do  not  find  that  they  unnerve  the  greater 
number  of  mankind ;  most  men,  indeed,  go  coolly  enough 
even  to  be  hanged,  but  the  strongest  quail  before  finan- 
cial ruin,  and  the  better  men  they  are,  the  more  complete, 
as  a  general  rule,  is  their  prostration.  Suicide  is  a  com- 
mon consequence  of  money  losses ;  it  is  rarely  sought  as 
a  means  of  escape  from  bodily  suffering.  If  we  feel 
that  we  have  a  competence  at  our  backs,  so  that  we  can 
die  warm  and  quietly  in  our  beds,  with  no  need  to  worry 
about  expense,  we  live  our  lives  out  to  the  dregs,  no 
matter  how  excruciating  our  torments.  Job  probably  felt 
the  loss  of  his  flocks  and  herds  more  than  that  of  his 
wife  and  family,  for  he  could  enjoy  his  flocks  and  herds 
without  his  family,  but  not  his  family — not  for  long — if 


326         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

he  had  lost  all  his  money.  Loss  of  money  indeed  is  not 
only  the  worst  pain  in  itself,  but  it  is  the  parent  of  all 
others.  Let  a  man  have  been  brought  up  to  a  moderate 
competence,  and  have  no  specialty ;  then  let  his  money  be 
suddenly  taken  from  him,  and  how  long  is  his  health 
likely  to  survive  the  change  in  all  his  little  ways  which 
loss  of  money  will  entail  ?  How  long  again  is  the  esteem 
and  sympathy  of  friends  likely  to  survive  ruin?  People 
may  be  very  sorry  for  us,  but  their  attitude  towards  us 
hitherto  has  been  based  upon  the  supposition  that  we 
were  situated  thus  or  thus  in  money  matters ;  when  this 
breaks  down  there  must  be  a  restatement  of  the  social 
problem  so  far  as  we  are  concerned;  we  have  been  ob- 
taining esteem  under  false  pretences.  Granted,  then, 
that  the  three  most  serious  losses  which  a  man  can  suffer 
are  those  affecting  money,  health  and  reputation.  Loss 
of  money  is  far  the  worst,  then  comes  ill-health,  and 
then  loss  of  reputation ;  loss  of  reputation  is  a  bad  third, 
for,  if  a  man  keeps  health  and  money  unimpaired,  it  will 
be  generally  found  that  his  loss  of  reputation  is  due  to 
breaches  of  parvenu  conventions  only,  and  not  to  viola- 
tions of  those  older,  better  established  canons  whose 
authority  is  unquestionable.  In  this  case  a  man  may 
grow  a  new  reputation  as  easily  as  a  lobster  grows  a 
new  claw,  or,  if  he  have  health  and  money,  may  thrive  in 
great  peace  of  mind  without  any  reputation  at  all.  The 
only  chance  for  a  man  who  has  lost  his  money  is  that 
he  shall  still  be  young  enough  to  stand  uprooting  andj 
transplanting  without  more  than  temporary  derangement, 
and  this  I  believed  my  godson  still  to  be. 

By  the  prison  rules  he  might  receive  and  send  a  letter 
after  he  had  been  in  gaol  three  months,  and  might  also 
receive  one  visit  from  a  friend.  When  he  received  my 
letter,  he  at  once  asked  me  to  come  and  see  him,  which 
of  course  I  did.  I  found  him  very  much  changed,  and 
still  so  feeble  that  the  exertion  of  coming  from  the  in- 
firmary to  the  cell  in  which  I  was  allowed  to  see  him, 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         327 

and  the  agitation  of  seeing  me  were  too  much  for  him. 
At  first  he  quite  broke  down,  and  I  was  so  pained  at  the 
state  in  which  I  found  him,  that  I  was  on  the  point  of 
breaking  my  instructions  then  and  there.  I  contented 
myself,  however,  for  the  time,  with  assuring  him  that  I 
would  help  him  as  soon  as  he  came  out  of  prison,  and 
that,  when  he  had  made  up  his  mind  what  he  would  do, 
he  was  to  come  to  me  for  what  money  might  be  necessary, 
if  he  could  not  get  it  from  his  father.  To  make  it  easier 
for  him  I  told  him  that  his  aunt,  on  her  deathbed,  had 
desired  me, to  do  something  of  this  sort  should  an  emer- 
gency arise,  so  that  he  would  only  be  taking  what  his 
aunt  had  left  him. 

"Then,"  said  he,  "I  will  not  take  the  £100  from 
my  father,  and  I  will  never  see  him  or  my  mother 
again." 

I  said :  "Take  the  £100,  Ernest,  and  as  much  more  as 
you  can  get,  and  then  do  not  see  them  again  if  you  do 
not  like." 

This  Ernest  would  not  do.  If  he  took  money  from 
them,  he  could  not  cut  them,  and  he  wanted  to  cut  them. 
I  thought  my  godson  would  get  on  a  great  deal  better 
if  he  would  only  have  the  firmness  to  do  as  he  proposed, 
as  regards  breaking  completely  with  his  father  and 
mother,  and  said  so.  "Then  don't  you  like  them?"  said 
he,  with  a  look  of  surprise. 

"Like  them !"  said  I,  "I  think  they're  horrid." 

"Oh,  that's  the  kindest  thing  of  all  you  have  done  for 
me,"  he  exclaimed.  "I  thought  all — all  middle-aged  peo- 
ple liked  my  father  and  mother." 

He  had  been  about  to  call  me  old,  but  I  was  only 
fifty-seven,  and  was  not  going  to  have  this,  so  I  made  a 
face  when  I  saw  him  hesitating,  which  drove  him  into 
"middle-aged." 

"If  you  like  it,"  said  I,  "I  will  say  all  your  family  are 
horrid  except  yourself  and  your  Aunt  Alethea.  The 
greater  part  of  every  family  is  always  odious;  if  there 


328         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

are  one  or  two  good  ones  in  a  very  large  family,  it  is  as 
much  as  can  be  expected." 

"Thank  you,"  he  replied,  gratefully,  "I  think  I  can 
now  stand  almost  anything.  I  will  come  and  see  you  as 
soon  as  I  come  out  of  gaol.  Goodbye."  For  the  warder 
had  told  us  that  the  time  allowed  for  our  interview  was 
at  an  end. 


CHAPTER  LXVII 

As  soon  as  Ernest  found  that  he  had  no  money  to  look 
to  upon  leaving  prison  he  saw  that  his  dreams  about 
emigrating  and  farming  must  come  to  an  end,  for  he 
knew  that  he  was  incapable  of  working  at  the  plough  or 
with  the  axe  for  long  together  himself.  And  now  it 
seemed  he  should  have  no  money  to  pay  any  one  else 
for  doing  so.  It  was  this  that  resolved  him  to  part  once 
and  for  all  with  his  parents.  If  he  had  been  going 
abroad  he  could  have  kept  up  relations  with  them,  for 
they  would  have  been  too  far  off  to  interfere  with  him. 

He  knew  his  father  and  mother  would  object  to  being 
cut ;  they  would  wish  to  appear  kind  and  forgiving ;  they 
would  also  dislike  having  no  further  power  to  plague 
him ;  but  he  knew  also  very  well  that  so  long  as  he  and 
they  ran  in  harness  together  they  would  be  always  pulling 
one  way  and  he  another.  He  wanted  to  drop  the  gentle- 
man and  go  down  into  the  ranks,  beginning  on  the  lowest 
rung  of  the  ladder,  where  no  one  would  know  of  his 
disgrace  or  mind  it  if  he  did  know ;  his  father  and 
mother  on  the  other  hand  would  wish  him  to  clutch  on 
to  the  fag-end  of  gentility  at  a  starvation  salary  and  with 
no  prospect  of  advancement.  Ernest  had  seen  enough 
in  Ashpit  Place  to  know  that  a  tailor,  if  he  did  not  drink 
and  attended  to  his  business,  could  earn  more  money  than 
a  clerk  or  a  curate,  while  much  less  expense  by  way  of 
show  was  required  of  him.  The  tailor  also  had  more 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         329 

liberty,  and  a  better  chance  of  rising.  Ernest  resolved 
at  once,  as  he  had  fallen  so  far,  to  fall  still  lower — 
promptly,  gracefully  and  with  the  idea  of  rising  again, 
rather  than  cling  to  the  skirts  of  a  respectability  which 
would  permit  him  to  exist  on  sufferance  only,  and  make 
him  pay  an  utterly  extortionate  price  for  an  article  which 
he  could  do  better  without. 

He  arrived  at  this  result  more  quickly  than  he  might 
otherwise  have  done  through  remembering  something  he 
had  once  heard  his  aunt  say  about  "kissing  the  soil." 
This  had  impressed  him  and  stuck  by  him  perhaps  by 
reason  of  its  brevity ;  when  later  on  he  came  to  know  the 
story  of  Hercules  and  Antaeus,  he  found  it  one  of  the 
very  few  ancient  fables  which  had  a  hold  over  him — his 
chiefest  debt  to  classical  literature.  His  aunt  had  wanted 
him  to  learn  carpentering,  as  a  means  of  kissing  the  soil 
should  his  Hercules  ever  throw  him.  It  was  too  late  for 
this  now — or  he  thought  it  was — but  the  mode  of  carrying 
out  his  aunt's  idea  was  a  detail;  there  were  a  hundred 
ways  of  kissing  the  soil  besides  becoming  a  carpenter. 

He  had  told  me  this  during  our  interview,  and  I  had 
encouraged  him  to  the  utmost  of  my  power.  He  showed 
so  much  more  good  sense  than  I  had  given  him  credit  for 
that  I  became  comparatively  easy  about  him,  and  deter- 
mined to  let  him  play  his  own  game,  being  always,  how- 
ever, ready  to  hand  in  case  things  went  too  far  wrong. 
It  was  not  simply  because  he  disliked  his  father  and 
mother  that  he  wanted  to  have  no  more  to  do  with  them ; 
if  it  had  been  only  this  he  would  have  put  up  with  them; 
but  a  warning  voice  within  told  him  distinctly  enough 
that  if  he  was  clean  cut  away  from  them  he  might  still 
have  a  chance  of  success,  whereas  if  they  had  anything 
whatever  to  do  with  him,  or  even  knew  where  he  was, 
they  would  hamper  him  and  in  the  end  ruin  him.  Abso- 
lute independence  he  believed  to  be  his  only  chance  of 
very  life  itself. 

Over  and  above  this — if  this  were  not  enough — Ernest 


330         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

had  a  faith  in  his  own  destiny  such  as  most  young  men, 
I  suppose,  feel,  but  the  grounds  of  which  were  not  ap- 
parent to  any  one  but  himself.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  in  a 
quiet  way  he  believed  he  possessed  a  strength  which,  if 
he  were  only  free  to  use  it  in  his  own  way,  might  do 
great  things  some  day.  He  did  not  know  when,  nor 
where,  nor  how  his  opportunity  was  to  come,  but  he  never 
doubted  that  it  would  come  in  spite  of  all  that  had 
happened,  and  above  all  else  he  cherished  the  hope  that 
he  might  know  how  to  seize  it  if  it  came,  for  whatever 
it  was  it  would  be  something  that  no  one  else  could  do 
so  well  as  he  could.  People  said  there  were  no  dragons 
and  giants  for  adventurous  men  to  fight  with  nowadays ; 
it  was  beginning  to  dawn  upon  him  that  there  were  just 
as  many  now  as  at  any  past  time. 

Monstrous  as  such  a  faith  may  seem  in  one  who  was 
qualifying  himself  for  a  high  mission  by  a  term  of  im- 
prisonment, he  could  no  more  help  it  than  he  could  help 
breathing;  it  was  innate  in  him,  and  it  was  even  more 
with  a  view  to  this  than  for  other  reasons  that  he  wished 
to  sever  the  connection  between  himself  and  his  parents ; 
for  he  knew  that  if  ever  the  day  came  in  which  it  should 
appear  that  before  him  too  there  was  a  race  set  in  which 
it  might  be  an  honour  to  have  run  among  the  foremost, 
his  father  and  mother  would  be  the  first  to  let  him  and 
hinder  him  in  running  it.  They  had  been  the  first  to  say 
that  he  ought  to  run  such  a  race ;  they  would  also  be  the 
first  to  trip  him  up  if  he  took  them  at  their  word,  and 
then  afterwards  upbraid  him  for  not  having  won. 
Achievement  of  any  kind  would  be  impossible  for  him 
unless  he  was  free  from  those  who  would  be  for  ever 
dragging  him  back  into  the  conventional.  The  conven- 
tional had  been  tried  already  and  had  been  found  want- 
ing. 

He  had  an  opportunity  now,  if  he  chose  to  take  it,  of 
escaping  once  for  all  from  those  who  at  once  tormented 
him  and  would  hold  him  earthward  should  a  chance  of 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         331 

soaring  open  before  him.  He  should  never  have  had  it 
but  for  his  imprisonment ;  but  for  this  the  force  of  habit 
and  routine  would  have  been  too  strong  for  him;  he 
should  hardly  have  had  it  if  he  had  not  lost  all  his 
money ;  the  gap  would  not  have  been  so  wide  but  that 
he  might  have  been  inclined  to  throw  a  plank  across  it. 
He  rejoiced  now,  therefore,  over  his  loss  of  money 
as  well  as  over  his  imprisonment,  which  had  made  it 
more  easy  for  him  to  follow  his  truest  and  most  lasting 
interests. 

At  times  he  wavered,  when  he  thought  of  how  his 
mother,  who  in  her  way,  as  he  thought,  had  loved  him, 
would  weep  and  think  sadly  over  him,  or  how  perhaps 
she  might  even  fall  ill  and  die,  and  how  the  blame  would 
rest  with  him.  At  these  times  his  resolution  was  near 
breaking,  but  when  he  found  I  applauded  his  design,  the 
voice  within,  which  bade  him  see  his  father's  and  mother's 
faces  no  more,  grew  louder  and  more  persistent.  If  he 
could  not  cut  himself  adrift  from  those  who  he  knew 
would  hamper  him,  when  so  small  an  effort  was  wanted, 
his  dream  of  a  destiny  was  idle ;  what  was  the  prospect  of 
a  hundred  pounds  from  his  father  in  comparison  with 
jeopardy  to  this?  He  still  felt  deeply  the  pain  his  dis- 
grace had  inflicted  upon  his  father  and  mother,  but  he 
was  getting  stronger,  and  reflected  that  as  he  had  run  his 
chance  with  them  for  parents,  so  they  must  run  theirs 
with  him  for  a  son. 

He  had  nearly  settled  down  to  this  conclusion  when 
he  received  a  letter  from  his  father  which  made  his  de- 
cision final.  If  the  prison  rules  had  been  interpreted 
strictly,  he  would  not  have  been  allowed  to  have  this 
letter  for  another  three  months,  as  he  had  already  heard 
from  me,  but  the  governor  took  a  lenient  view,  and  con- 
sidered the  letter  from  me  to  be  a  business  communica- 
tion hardly  coming  under  the  category  of  a  letter  from 
friends.  Theobald's  letter  therefore  was  given  to  his 
son.  It  ran  as  follows : — 


332         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

"My  dear  Ernest,  My  object  in  writing  is  not  to  up- 
braid you  with  the  disgrace  and  shame  you  have  inflicted 
upon  your  mother  and  myself,  to  say  nothing  of  your 
brother  Joey,  and  your  sister.  Suffer  of  course  we 
must,  but  we  know  to  whom  to  look  in  our  affliction,  and 
are  filled  with  anxiety  rather  on  your  behalf  than  our 
own.  Your  mother  is  wonderful.  She  is  pretty  well 
in  health,  and  desires  me  to  send  you  her  love. 

"Have  you  considered  your  prospects  on  leaving  pris- 
on? I  understand  from  Mr.  Overton  that  you  have  lost 
the  legacy  which  your  grandfather  left  you,  together  with 
all  the  interest  that  accrued  during  your  minority,  in  the 
course  of  speculation  upon  the  Stock  Exchange!  If  you 
have  indeed  been  guilty  of  such  appalling  folly  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  what  you  can  turn  your  hand  to,  and  I  sup- 
pose you  will  try  to  find  a  clerkship  in  an  office.  Your 
salary  will  doubtless  be  low  at  first,  but  you  have  made 
your  bed  and  must  not  complain  if  you  have  to  lie  upon 
it.  If  you  take  pains  to  please  your  employers  they  will 
not  be  backward  in  promoting  you. 

"When  I  first  heard  from  Mr.  Overton  of  the  unspeak- 
able calamity  which  had  befallen  your  mother  and  my- 
self, I  had  resolved  not  to  see  you  again.  I  am  unwilling, 
however,  to  have  recourse  to  a  measure  which  would 
deprive  you  of  your  last  connecting  link  with  respectable 
people.  Your  mother  and  I  will  see  you  as  soon  as  you 
come  out  of  prison;  not  at  Battersby — we  do  not  wish 
you  to  come  down  here  at  present — but  somewhere  else, 
probably  in  London.  You  need  not  shrink  from  seeing 
us;  we  shall  not  reproach  you.  We  will  then  decide 
about  your  future. 

"At  present  our  impression  is  that  you  will  find  a  fairer 
start  probably  in  Australia  or  New  Zealand  than  here, 
and  I  am  prepared  to  find  you  £75  or  even  if  necessary 
so  far  as  £100  to  pay  your  passage  money.  Once  in 
the  colony  you  must  be  dependent  upon  your  own  ex- 
ertions. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         333 

"May  Heaven  prosper  them  and  you,  and  restore  you 
to  us  years  hence  a  respected  member  of  society. — Your 
affectionate  father,  T.  PONTIFEX." 

Then  there  was  a  postscript  in  Christina's  writing. 

"My  darling,  darling  boy,  pray  with  me  daily  and 
hourly  that  we  may  yet  again  become  a  happy,  united, 
God-fearing  family  as  we  were  before  this  horrible  pain 
fell  upon  us. — Your  sorrowing  but  ever  loving  mother, 

"C.  P." 

This  letter  did  not  produce  the  effect  on  Ernest  that  it 
would  have  done  before  his  imprisonment  began.  His 
father  and  mother  thought  they  could  take  him  up  as 
they  had  left  him  off.  They  forgot  the  rapidity  with 
which  development  follows  misfortune,  if  the  sufferer  is 
young  and  of  a  sound  temperament.  Ernest  made  no 
reply  to  his  father's  letter,  but  his  desire  for  a  total  break 
developed  into  something  like  a  passion.  "There  are 
orphanages,"  he  exclaimed  to  himself,  "for  children  who 
have  lost  their  parents — oh !  why,  why,  why,  are  there  no 
harbours  of  refuge  for  grown  men  who  have  not  yet  lost 
them?"  And  he  brooded  over  the  bliss  of  Melchisedek 
who  had  been  born  an  orphan,  without  father,  without 
mother,  and  without  descent. 


CHAPTER  LXVIII 

WHEN  I  think  over  all  that  Ernest  told  me  about  his 
prison  meditations,  and  the  conclusions  he  was  drawn  to, 
it  occurs  to  me  that  in  reality  he  was  wanting  to  do  the 
very  last  thing  which  it  would  have  entered  into  his  head 
to  think  of  wanting.  I  mean  that  he  was  trying  to  give 
up  father  and  mother  for  Christ's  sake.  He  would  have 
said  he  was  giving  them  up  because  he  thought  they  hin- 
dered him  in  the  pursuit  of  his  truest  and  most  lasting 


334         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

happiness.  Granted,  but  what  is  this  if  it  is  not  Christ? 
What  is  Christ  if  He  is  not  this?  He  who  takes  the 
highest  and  most  self-respecting  view  of  his  own  welfare 
which  it  is  in  his  power  to  conceive,  and  adheres  to  it 
in  spite  of  conventionality,  is  a  Christian  whether  he 
knows  it  and  calls  himself  one,  or  whether  he  does  not. 
A  rose  is  not  the  less  a  rose  because  it  does  not  know  its 
own  name. 

What  if  circumstances  had  made  his  duty  more  easy 
for  him  than  it  would  be  to  most  men?  That  was  his 
luck,  as  much  as  it  is  other  people's  luck  to  have  other 
duties  made  easy  for  them  by  accident  of  birth.  Surely 
if  people  are  born  rich  or  handsome  they  have  a  right  to 
their  good  fortune.  Some,  I  know,  will  say  that  one  man 
has  no  right  to  be  born  with  a  better  constitution  than 
another ;  others  again  will  say  that  luck  is  the  only  right- 
eous object  of  human  veneration.  Both,  I  daresay,  can 
make  out  a  very  good  case,  but  whichever  may  be  right 
surely  Ernest  had  as  much  right  to  the  good  luck  of 
finding  a  duty  made  easier  as  he  had  had  to  the  bad  for- 
tune of  falling  into  the  scrape  which  had  got  him  into 
prison.  A  man  is  not  to  be  sneered  at  for  having  a 
trump  card  in  his  hand ;  he  is  only  to  be  sneered  at  if  he 
plays  his  trump  card  badly. 

Indeed,  I  question  whether  it  is  ever  much  harder  for 
anyone  to  give  up  father  and  mother  for  Christ's  sake 
than  it  was  for  Ernest.  The  relations  between  the  par- 
ties will  have  almost  always  been  severely  strained  be- 
fore it  comes  to  this.  I  doubt  whether  anyone  was  ever 
yet  required  to  give  up  those  to  whom  he  was  tenderly 
attached  for  a  mere  matter  of  conscience:  he  will  have 
ceased  to  be  tenderly  attached  to  them  long  before  he  is 
called  upon  to  break  with  them ;  for  differences  of 
opinion  concerning  any  matter  of  vital  importance  spring 
from  differences  of  constitution,  and  these  will  already 
have  led  to  so  much  other  disagreement  that  the  "giving 
up,"  when  it  comes,  is  like  giving  up  an  aching  but  very 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         335 

loose  and  hollow  tooth.  It  is  the  loss  of  those  whom  we 
are  not  required  to  give  up  for  Christ's  sake  which  is 
really  painful  to  us.  Then  there  is  a  wrench  in  earnest. 
Happily,  no  matter  how  light  the  task  that  is  demanded 
from  us,  it  is  enough  if  we  do  it;  we  reap  our  reward, 
much  as  though  it  were  a  Herculean  labour. 

But  to  return,  the  conclusion  Ernest  came  to  was  that 
he  would  be  a  tailor.  He  talked  the  matter  over  with  the 
chaplain,  who  told  him  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  be  able  to  earn  his  six  or  seven  shillings  a  day  by  the 
time  he  came  out  of  prison,  if  he  chose  to  learn  the  trade 
during  the  remainder  of  his  term — not  quite  three 
months ;  the  doctor  said  he  was  strong  enough  for  this, 
and  that  it  was  about  the  only  thing  he  was  as  yet  fit  for ; 
so  he  left  the  infirmary  sooner  than  he  would  otherwise 
have  done  and  entered  the  tailor's  shop,  overjoyed  at 
the  thoughts  of  seeing  his  wray  again,  and  confident  of 
rising  some  day  if  he  could  only  get  a  firm  foothold  to 
start  from. 

Everyone  whom  he  had  to  do  with  saw  that  he  did  not 
belong  to  what  are  called  the  criminal  classes,  and  finding 
him  eager  to  learn  and  to  save  trouble  always  treated  him 
kindly  and  almost  respectfully.  He  did  not  find  the  work 
irksome :  it  was  far  more  pleasant  than  making  Latin 
and  Greek  verses  at  Roughborough ;  he  felt  that  he  would 
rather  be  here  in  prison  than  at  Roughborough  again — 
yes,  or  even  at  Cambridge  itself.  The  only  trouble  he 
was  ever  in  danger  of  getting  into  was  through  exchang- 
ing words  or  looks  with  the  more  decent-looking  of  his 
fellow-prisoners.  This  was  forbidden,  but  he  never 
missed  a  chance  of  breaking  the  rules  in  this  respect. 

Any  man  of  his  ability  who  was  at  the  same  time 
anxious  to  learn  would  of  course  make  rapid  progress, 
and  before  he  left  prison  the  warder  said  he  was  as  good 
a  tailor  with  his  three  months'  apprenticeship  as  many  a 
man  was  with  twelve.  Ernest  had  never  before  been  so 
much  praised  by  any  of  his  teachers.  Each  day  as  he 


336         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

grew  stronger  in  health  and  more  accustomed  to  his 
surroundings  he  saw  some  fresh  advantage  in  his  posi- 
tion, an  advantage  which  he  had  not  aimed  at,  but  which 
had  come  almost  in  spite  of  himself,  and  he  marvelled  at 
his  own  good  fortune,  which  had  ordered  things  so 
greatly  better  for  him  than  he  could  have  ordered  them 
for  himself. 

His  having  lived  six  months  in  Ashpit  Place  was  a  case 
in  point.  Things  were  possible  to  him  which  to  others 
like  him  would  be  impossible.  If  such  a  man  as  Towne- 
ley  were  told  he  must  live  henceforth  in  a  house  like 
those  in  Ashpit  Place  it  would  be  more  than  he  could 
stand.  Ernest  could  not  have  stood  it  himself  if  he  had 
gone  to  live  there  of  compulsion  through  want  of  money. 
It  was  only  because  he  had  felt  himself  able  to  run  away 
at  any  minute  that  he  had  not  wanted  to  do  so;  now, 
however,  that  he  had  become  familiar  with  life  in  Ashpit 
Place  he  no  longer  minded  it,  and  could  live  gladly  in 
lower  parts  of  London  than  that  so  long  as  he  could  pay 
his  way.  It  was  from  no  prudence  or  forethought  that 
he  had  served  this  apprenticeship  to  life  among  the 
poor.  He  had  been  trying  in  a  feeble  way  to  be  thorough 
in  his  work :  he  had  not  been  thorough,  the  whole  thing 
had  been  a  fiasco;  but  he  had  made  a  little  puny  effort  in 
the  direction  of  being  genuine,  and  behold,  in  his  hour 
of  need  it  had  been  returned  to  him  with  a  reward  far 
richer  than  he  had  deserved.  He  could  not  have  faced 
becoming  one  of  the  very  poor  unless  he  had  had  such 
a  bridge  to  conduct  him  over  to  them  as  he  had  found 
unwittingly  in  Ashpit  Place.  True,  there  had  been  draw- 
backs in  the  particular  house  he  had  chosen,  but  he  need 
not  live  in  a  house  where  there  was  a  Mr.  Holt,  and  he 
should  no  longer  be  tied  to  the  profession  which  he  so 
much  hated ;  if  there  were  neither  screams  nor  scripture 
readings  he  could  be  happy  in  a  garret  at  three  shillings 
a  week,  such  as  Miss  Maitland  lived  in. 

As  he  thought  further  he  remembered  that  all  things 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         337 

work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God;  was  it 
possible,  he  asked  himself,  that  he  too,  however  imper- 
fectly, had  been  trying  to  love  him?  He  dared  not  an- 
swer Yes,  but  he  would  try  hard  that  it  should  be  so. 
Then  there  came  into  his  mind  that  noble  air  of  Handel's  : 
"Great  God,  who  yet  but  darkly  known,"  and  he  felt  it 
as  he  had  never  felt  it  before.  He  had  lost  his  faith 
in  Christianity,  but  his  faith  in  something — he  knew  not 
what,  but  that  there  was  a  something  as  yet  but  darkly 
known,  which  made  right  right  and  wrong  wrong — his 
faith  in  this  grew  stronger  and  stronger  daily. 

Again  there  crossed  his  mind  thoughts  of  the  power 
which  he  felt  to  be  in  him,  and  of  how  and  where  it  was 
to  find  its  vent.  The  same  instinct  which  had  led  him  to 
live  among  the  poor  because  it  was  the  nearest  thing  to 
him  which  he  could  lay  hold  of  with  any  clearness  came 
to  his  assistance  here  too.  He  thought  of  the  Australian 
gold  and  how  those  who  lived  among  it  had  never  seen  it 
though  it  abounded  all  around  them:  "Here  is  gold 
everywhere,"  he  exclaimed  inwardly,  "to  those  who  look 
for  it."  Might  not  his  opportunity  be  close  upon  him 
if  he  looked  carefully  enough  at  his  immediate  sur- 
roundings ?  What  was  his  position  ?  He  had  lost  all. 
Could  he  not  turn  his  having  lost  all  into  an  opportunity  ? 
Might  he  not,  if  he  too  sought  the  strength  of  the  Lord, 
find,  like  St.  Paul,  that  it  was  perfected  in  weakness  ? 

He  had  nothing  more  to  lose ;  money,  friends,  charac- 
ter, all  were  gone  for  a  very  long  time  if  not  for  ever; 
but  there  was  something  else  also  that  had  taken  its  flight 
along  with  these.  I  mean  the  fear  of  that  which  man 
could  do  unto  him.  Cantabit  vacuus.  Who  could  hurt 
him  more  than  he  had  been  hurt  already?  Let  him  but 
be  able  to  earn  his  bread,  and  he  knew  of  nothing  which 
he  dared  not  venture  if  it  would  make  the  world  a  hap- 
pier place  for  those  who  were  young  and  lovable. 
Herein  he  found  so  much  comfort  that  he  almost  wished 
he  had  lost  his  reputation  even  more  completely — for 


338         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

he  saw  that  it  was  like  a  man's  life  which  may  be  found 
of  them  that  lose  it  and  lost  of  them  that  would  find  it. 
He  should  not  have  had  the  courage  to  give  up  all  for 
Christ's  sake,  but  now  Christ  had  mercifully  taken  all, 
and  lo !  it  seemed  as  though  all  were  found. 

As  the  days  went  slowly  by  he  came  to  see  that  Chris- 
tianity and  the  denial  of  Christianity  after  all  met  as 
much  as  any  other  extremes  do;  it  was  a  fight  about 
names — not  about  things ;  practically  the  Church  of 
Rome,  the  Church  of  England,  and  the  freethinker  have 
the  same  ideal  standard  and  meet  in  the  gentleman;  for 
he  is  the  most  perfect  saint  who  is  the  most  perfect  gen- 
tleman. Then  he  saw  also  that  it  matters  little  what 
profession,  whether  of  religion  or  irreligion,  a  man  may 
make,  provided  only  he  follows  it  out  with  charitable  in- 
consistency, and  without  insisting  on  it  to  the  bitter  end. 
It  is  in  the  uncompromisingness  with  which  dogma  is  held 
and  not  in  the  dogma  or  want  of  dogma  that  the  danger 
lies.  This  was  the  crowning  point  of  the  edifice;  when 
he  had  got  here  he  no  longer  wished  to  molest  even  the 
Pope.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  might  have  hopped 
about  all  round  him  and  even  picked  crumbs  out  of  his 
hand  without  running  risk  of  getting  a  sly  sprinkle  of 
salt.  That  wary  prelate  himself  might  perhaps  have  been 
of  a  different  opinion,  but  the  robins  and  thrushes  that 
hop  about  our  lawns  are  not  more  needlessly  distrustful 
of  the  hand  that  throws  them  out  crumbs  of  bread  in 
winter,  than  the  Archbishop  would  have  been  of  my 
hero. 

Perhaps  he  was  helped  to  arrive  at  the  foregoing  con- 
clusion by  an  event  which  almost  thrust  inconsistency 
upon  him.  A  few  days  after  he  had  left  the  infirmary  the 
chaplain  came  to  his  cell  and  told  him  that  the  prisoner 
who  played  the  organ  in  chapel  had  just  finished  his  sen- 
tence and  was  leaving  the  prison ;  he  therefore  offered  the 
post  to  Ernest,  who  he  already  knew  played  the  organ. 
Ernest  was  at  first  in  doubt  whether  it  would  be  right  for 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         339 

him  to  assist  at  religious  services  more  than  he  was 
actually  compelled  to  do,  but  the  pleasure  of  playing  the 
organ,  and  the  privileges  which  the  post  involved,  made 
him  see  excellent  reasons  for  not  riding  consistency  to 
death.  Having,  then,  once  introduced  an  element  of  in- 
consistency into  his  system,  he  was  far  too  consistent 
not  to  be  inconsistent  consistently,  and  he  lapsed  ere  long 
into  an  amiable  indifferentism  which  to  outward  appear- 
ance differed  but  little  from  the  indifferentism  from 
which  Mr.  Hawke  had  aroused  him. 

By  becoming  organist  he  was  saved  from  the  tread- 
mill, for  which  the  doctor  had  said  he  was  unfit  as  yet, 
but  which  he  would  probably  have  been  put  to  in  due 
course  as  soon  as  he  was  stronger.  He  might  have  es- 
caped the  tailor's  shop  altogether  and  done  only  the  com- 
paratively light  work  of  attending  to  the  chaplain's  rooms 
if  he  had  liked,  but  he  wanted  to  learn  as  much  tailoring 
as  he  could,  and  did  not  therefore  take  advantage  of  this 
offer;  he  was  allowed,  however,  two  hours  a  day  in  the 
afternoon  for  practice.  From  that  moment  his  prison 
life  ceased  to  be  monotonous,  and  the  remaining  two 
months  of  his  sentence  slipped  by  almost  as  rapidly  as 
they  would  have  done  if  he  had  been  free.  What  with 
music,  books,  learning  his  trade,  and  conversation  with 
the  chaplain,  who  was  just  the  kindly,  sensible  person 
that  Ernest  wanted  in  order  to  steady  him  a  little,  the 
days  went  by  so  pleasantly  that  when  the  time  came  for 
him  to  leave  prison,  he  did  so,  or  thought  he  did  so,  not 
without  regret. 


CHAPTER   LXIX 

IN  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  he  would  sever  the  con- 
nection between  himself  and  his  family  once  for  all 
Ernest  had  reckoned  without  his  family.  Theobald 
wanted  to  be  rid  of  his  son,  it  is  true,  in  so  far  as  he 


340         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

wished  him  to  be  no  nearer  at  any  rate  than  the  Antipo- 
des; but  he  had  no  idea  of  entirely  breaking  with  him. 
He  knew  his  son  well  enough  to  have  a  pretty  shrewd 
idea  that  this  was  what  Ernest  would  wish  himself,  and 
perhaps  as  much  for  this  reason  as  for  any  other  he  was 
determined  to  keep  up  the  connection,  provided  it  did  not 
involve  Ernest's  coming  to  Battersby  nor  any  recurring 
outlay. 

When  the  time  approached  for  him  to  leave  prison,  his 
father  and  mother  consulted  as  to  what  course  they 
should  adopt. 

"We  must  never  leave  him  to  himself,"  said  Theobald 
impressively;  "we  can  neither  of  us  wish  that." 

"Oh,  no!  no!  dearest  Theobald,"  exclaimed  Christina. 
"Whoever  else  deserts  him,  and  however  distant  he  may 
be  from  us,  he  must  still  feel  that  he  has  parents  whose 
hearts  beat  with  affection  for  him  no  matter  how  cruelly 
he  has  pained  them." 

"He  has  been  his  own  worst  enemy,"  said  Theobald. 
"He  has  never  loved  us  as  we  deserved,  and  now  he  will 
be  withheld  by  false  shame  from  wishing  to  see  us.  He 
will  avoid  us  if  he  can." 

"Then  we  must  go  to  him  ourselves,"  said  Christina; 
"whether  he  likes  it  or  not  we  must  be  at  his  side  to  sup- 
port him  as  he  enters  again  upon  the  world." 

"If  we  do  not  want  him  to  give  us  the  slip  we  must 
catch  him  as  he  leaves  prison." 

"We  will,  we  will ;  our  faces  shall  be  the  first  to  gladden 
his  eyes  as  he  comes  out,  and  our  voices  the  first  to  ex- 
hort him  to  return  to  the  paths  of  virtue." 

"I  think,"  said  Theobald,  "if  he  sees  us  in  the  street 
he  will  turn  round  and  run  away  from  us.  He  is  in- 
tensely selfish." 

"Then  we  must  get  leave  to  go  inside  the  prison,  and 
see  him  before  he  gets  outside." 

After  a  good  deal  of  discussion  this  was  the  plan  they 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         341 

decided  on  adopting,  and  having  so  decided,  Theobald 
wrote  to  the  governor  of  the  gaol  asking  whether  he  could 
be  admitted  inside  the  gaol  to  receive  Ernest  when  his 
sentence  had  expired.  He  received  answer  in  the  affirma- 
tive, and  the  pair  left  Battersby  the  day  before  Ernest 
was  to  come  out  of  prison. 

Ernest  had  not  reckoned  on  this,  and  was  rather  sur- 
prised on  being  told  a  few  minutes  before  nine  that  he 
was  to  go  into  the  receiving  room  before  he  left  the 
prison,  as  there  were  visitors  waiting  to  see  him.  His 
heart  fell,  for  he  guessed  who  they  were,  but  he  screwed 
up  his  courage  and  hastened  to  the  receiving  room. 
There,  sure  enough,  standing  at  the  end  of  the  table 
nearest  the  door  were  the  two  people  whom  he  regarded 
as  the  most  dangerous  enemies  he  had  in  all  the  world — 
his  father  and  mother. 

He  could  not  fly,  but  he  knew  that  if  he  wavered  he 
was  lost. 

His  mother  was  crying,  but  she  sprang  forward  to  meet 
him  and  clasped  him  in  her  arms.  "Oh,  my  boy,  my  boy," 
she  sobbed,  and  she  could  say  no  more. 

Ernest  was  as  white  as  a  sheet.  His  heart  beat  so  that 
he  could  hardly  breathe.  He  let  his  mother  embrace  him, 
and  then  withdrawing  himself  stood  silently  before  her 
with  the  tears  falling  from  his  eyes. 

At  first  he  could  not  speak.  For  a  minute  or  so  the 
silence  on  all  sides  was  complete.  Then,  gathering 
strength,  he  said  in  a  low  voice : 

"Mother"  (it  was  the  first  time  he  had  called  her  any- 
thing but  "mamma"),  "we  must  part."  Oh  this,  turning 
to  the  warder,  he  said :  "I  believe  I  am  free  to  leave  the 
prison  if  I  wish  to  do  so.  You  cannot  compel  me  to  re- 
main here  longer.  Please  take  me  to  the  gates." 

Theobald  stepped  forward.  "Ernest,  you  must  not, 
shall  not,  leave  us  in  this  way." 

"Do  not  speak  to  me,"  said  Ernest,  his  eyes  flashing 


342         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

with  a  fire  that  was  unwonted  in  them.  Another  warder 
then  came  up  and  took  Theobald  aside,  while  the  first 
conducted  Ernest  to  the  gates. 

"Tell  them,"  said  Ernest,  "from  me  that  they  must 
think  of  me  as  one  dead,  for  I  am  dead  to  them.  Say 
that  my  greatest  pain  is  the  thought  of  the  disgrace  I  have 
inflicted  upon  them,  and  that  above  all  things  else  I  will 
study  to  avoid  paining  them  hereafter;  but  say  also  that 
if  they  write  to  me  I  will  return  their  letters  unopened, 
and  that  if  they  come  and  see  me  I  will  protect  myself  in 
whatever  way  I  can." 

By  this  time  he  was  at  the  prison  gate,  and  in  another 
moment  was  at  liberty.  After  he  had  got  a  few  steps  out 
he  turned  his  face  to  the  prison  wall,  leant  against  it  for 
support,  and  wept  as  though  his  heart  would  break. 

Giving  up  father  and  mother  for  Christ's  sake  was  not 
such  an  easy  matter  after  all.  If  a  man  has  been  pos- 
sessed by  devils  for  long  enough  they  will  rend  him  as 
they  leave  him,  however  imperatively  they  may  have 
been  cast  out.  Ernest  did  not  stay  long  where  he  was, 
for  he  feared  each  moment  that  his  father  and  mother 
would  come  out.  He  pulled  himself  together  and  turned 
into  the  labyrinth  of  small  streets  which  opened  out  in 
front  of  him. 

He  had  crossed  his  Rubicon — not  perhaps  very  heroi- 
cally or  dramatically,  but  then  it  is  only  in  dramas  that 
people  act  dramatically.  At  any  rate,  by  hook  or  by  crook, 
he  had  scrambled  over,  and  was  out  upon  the  other  side. 
Already  he  thought  of  much  which  he  would  gladly  have 
said,  and  blamed  his  want  of  presence  of  mind;  but, 
after  all,  it  mattered  very  little.  Inclined  though  he  was 
to  make  very  great  allowances  for  his  father  and  mother, 
he  was  indignant  at  their  having  thrust  themselves  upon 
him  without  warning  at  a  moment  when  the  excitement 
of  leaving  prison  was  already  as  much  as  he  was  fit  for. 
It  was  a  mean  advantage  to  have  taken  over  him,  but  he 
was  glad  they  had  taken  it,  for  it  made  him  realise  more 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         343 

fully  than  ever  that  his  one  chance  lay  in  separating  him- 
self completely  from  them. 

The  morning  was  grey,  and  the  first  signs  of  winter 
fog  were  beginning  to  show  themselves,  for  it  was  now 
the  3Oth  of  September.  Ernest  wore  the  clothes  in  which 
he  had  entered  prison,  and  was  therefore  dressed  as  a 
clergyman.  No  one  who  looked  at  him  would  have  seen 
any  difference  between  his  present  appearance  and  his 
appearance  six  months  previously ;  indeed,  as  he  walked 
slowly  through  the  dingy  crowded  lane  called  Eyre 
Street  Hill  (which  he  well  knew,  for  he  had  clerical 
friends  in  that  neighbourhood),  the  months  he  had  passed 
in  prison  seemed  to  drop  out  of  his  life,  and  so  power- 
fully did  association  carry  him  away  that,  finding  himself 
in  his  old  dress  and  in  his  old  surroundings,  he  felt 
dragged  back  into  his  old  self — as  though  his  six  months 
of  prison  life  had  been  a  dream  from  which  he  was  now 
waking  to  take  things  up  as  he  had  left  them.  This  was 
the  effect  of  unchanged  surroundings  upon  the  unchanged 
part  of  him.  But  there  was  a  changed  part,  and  the 
effect  of  unchanged  surroundings  upon  this  was  to  make 
everything  seem  almost  as  strange  as  though  he  had  never 
had  any  life  but  his  prison  one,  and  was  now  born  into 
a  new  world. 

All  our  lives  long,  every  day  and  every  hour,  we  are 
engaged  in  the  process  of  accommodating  our  changed 
and  unchanged  selves  to  changed  and  unchanged  sur- 
roundings ;  living,  in  fact,  in  nothing  else  than  this  proc- 
ess of  accommodation ;  when  we  fail  in  it  a  little  we  are 
stupid,  when  we  fail  flagrantly  we  are  mad,  when  we  sus- 
pend it  temporarily  we  sleep,  when  we  give  up  the  at- 
tempt altogether  we  die.  In  quiet,  uneventful  lives  the 
changes  internal  and  external  are  so  small  that  there  is 
little  or  no  strain  in  the  process  of  fusion  and  accommo- 
dation ;  in  other  lives  there  is  great  strain,  but  there  is 
also  great  fusing  and  accommodating  power;  in  others 
great  strain  with  little  accommodating  power.  A  life  will 


344         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

be  successful  or  not  according  as  the  power  of  accommo- 
dation is  equal  to  or  unequal  to  the  strain  of  fusing  and 
adjusting  internal  and  external  changes. 

The  trouble  is  that  in  the  end  we  shall  be  driven  to 
admit  the  unity  of  the  universe  so  completely  as  to  be 
compelled  to  deny  that  there  is  either  an  external  or  an 
internal,  but  must  see  everything  both  as  external  and 
internal  at  one  and  the  same  time,  subject  and  object — 
external  and  internal — being  unified  as  much  as  every- 
thing else.  This  will  knock  our  whole  system  over,  but 
then  every  system  has  got  to  be  knocked  over  by  some- 
thing. 

Much  the  best  way  out  of  this  difficulty  is  to  go  in  for 
separation  between  internal  and  external — subject  and 
object — when  we  find  this  convenient,  and  unity  between 
the  same  when  we  find  unity  convenient.  This  is  illogi- 
cal, but  extremes  are  alone  logical,  and  they  are  always 
absurd,  the  mean  is  alone  practicable  and  it  is  always 
illogical.  It  is  faith  and  not  logic  which  is  the  supreme 
arbiter.  They  say  all  roads  lead  to  Rome,  and  all  philoso- 
phies that  I  have  ever  seen  lead  ultimately  either  to  some 
gross  absurdity,  or  else  to  the  conclusion  already  more 
than  once  insisted  on  in  these  pages,  that  the  just  shall 
live  by  faith,  that  is  to  say  that  sensible  people  will  get 
through  life  by  rule  of  thumb  as  they  may  interpret  it 
most  conveniently  without  asking  too  many  questions 
for  conscience  sake.  Take  any  fact,  and  reason  upon  it  to 
the  bitter  end,  and  it  will  ere  long  lead  to  this  as  the 
only  refuge  from  some  palpable  folly. 

But  to  return  to  my  story.  When  Ernest  got  to  the 
top  of  the  street  and  looked  back,  he  saw  the  grimy,  sullen 
walls  of  his  prison  filling  up  the  end  of  it.  He  paused  for 
a  minute  or  two.  "There,"  he  said  to  himself,  "I  was 
hemmed  in  by  bolts  which  I  could  see  and  touch ;  here  I 
am  barred  by  others  which  are  none  the  less  real — poverty 
and  ignorance  of  the  world.  It  was  no  part  of  my  busi- 
ness to  try  to  break  the  material  bolts  of  iron  and  escape 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         345 

from  prison,  but  now  that  I  am  free  I  must  surely  seek 
to  break  these  others." 

He  had  read  somewhere  of  a  prisoner  who  had  made 
his  escape  by  cutting  up  his  bedstead  with  an  iron  spoon. 
He  admired  and  marvelled  at  the  man's  mind,  but  could 
not  even  try  to  imitate  him;  in  the  presence  of  imma- 
terial barriers,  however,  he  was  not  so  easily  daunted, 
and  felt  as  though,  even  if  the  bed  were  iron  and  the 
spoon  a  wooden  one,  he  could  find  some  means  of  mak- 
ing the  wood  cut  the  iron  sooner  or  later. 

He  turned  his  back  upon  Eyre  Street  Hill  and  walked 
down  Leather  Lane  into  Holborn.  Each  step  he  took, 
each  face  or  object  that  he  knew,  helped  at  once  to  link 
him  on  to  the  life  he  had  led  before  his  imprisonment, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  make  him  feel  how  completely 
that  imprisonment  had  cut  his  life  into  two  parts,  the 
one  of  which  could  bear  no  resemblance  to  the  other. 

He  passed  down  Fetter  Lane  into  Fleet  Street  and  so 
to  the  Temple,  to  which  I  had  just  returned  from  my 
summer  holiday.  It  was  about  half  past  nine,  and  I 
was  having  my  breakfast,  when  I  heard  a  timid  knock  at 
the  door  and  opened  it  to  find  Ernest. 


CHAPTER   LXX 

I  HAD  begun  to  like  him  on  the  night  Towneley  had  sent 
for  me,  and  on  the  following  day  I  thought  he  had  shaped 
well.  I  had  liked  him  also  during  our  interview  in  prison, 
and  wanted  to  see  more  of  him,  so  that  I  might  make  up 
my  mind  about  him.  I  had  lived  long  enough  to  know 
that  some  men  who  do  great  things  in  the  end  are  not  very 
wise  when  they  are  young ;  knowing  that  he  would  leave 
prison  on  the  3Oth,  I  had  expected  him,  and,  as  I  had  a 
spare  bedroom,  pressed  him  to  say  with  me  till  he  could 
make  up  his  mind  what  he  would  do. 

Being  so  much  older  than  he  was,  I  anticipated  no 


346         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

trouble  in  getting  my  own  way,  but  he  would  not  hear 
of  it.  The  utmost  he  would  assent  to  was  that  he  should 
be  my  guest  till  he  could  find  a  room  for  himself,  which 
he  would  set  about  doing  at  once. 

He  was  still  much  agitated,  but  grew  better  as  he  ate  a 
breakfast,  not  of  prison  fare  and  in  a  comfortable  room. 
It  pleased  me  to  see  the  delight  he  took  in  all  about  him ; 
the  fireplace  with  a  fire  in  it ;  the  easy  chairs,  the  Times, 
my  cat,  the  red  geraniums  in  the  window,  to  say  nothing 
of  coffee,  bread  and  butter,  sausages,  marmalade,  etc. 
Everything  was  pregnant  with  the  most  exquisite  pleasure 
to  him.  The  plane  trees  were  full  of  leaf  still;  he  kept 
rising  from  the  breakfast  table  to  admire  them ;  never  till 
now,  he  said,  had  he  known  what  the  enjoyment  of  these 
things  really  was.  He  ate,  looked,  laughed  and  cried  by 
turns,  with  an  emotion  which  I  can  neither  forget  nor 
describe. 

He  told  me  how  his  father  and  mother  had  lain  in 
wait  for  him,  as  he  was  about  to  leave  prison.  I  was 
furious,  and  applauded  him  heartily  for  what  he  had 
done.  He  was  very  grateful  to  me  for  this.  Other  peo- 
ple, he  said,  would  tell  him  he  ought  to  think  of  his 
father  and  mother  rather  than  of  himself,  and  it  was 
such  a  comfort  to  find  someone  who  saw  things  as  he 
saw  them  himself.  Even  if  I  had  differed  from  him  I 
should  not  have  said  so,  but  I  was  of  his  opinion,  and 
was  almost  as  much  obliged  to  him  for  seeing  things  as 
I  saw  them,  as  he  to  me  for  doing  the  same  kind  office  by 
himself.  Cordially  as  I  disliked  Theobald  and  Christina, 
I  was  in  such  a  hopeless  minority  in  the  opinion  I  had 
formed  concerning  them  that  it  was  pleasant  to  find  some- 
one who  agreed  with  me. 

Then  there  came  an  awful  moment  for  both  of  us. 

A  knock,  as  of  a  visitor  and  not  a  postman,  was  heard 
at  my  door. 

"Goodness  gracious,"  I  exclaimed,  "why  didn't  we 
sport  the  oak?  Perhaps  it  is  your  father.  But  surely 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         347 

he  would  hardly  come  at  this  time  of  day!  Go  at  once 
into  my  bedroom." 

I  went  to  the  door,  and,  sure  enough,  there  were  both 
Theobald  and  Christina.  I  could  not  refuse  to  let  them 
in  and  was  obliged  to  listen  to  their  version  of  the  story, 
which  agreed  substantially  with  Ernest's.  Christina  cried 
bitterly — Theobald  stormed.  After  about  ten  minutes, 
during  which  I  assured  them  that  I  had  not  the  faintest 
conception  where  their  son  was,  I  dismissed  them  both. 
I  saw  they  looked  suspiciously  upon  the  manifest  signs 
that  someone  was  breakfasting  with  me,  and  parted  from 
me  more  or  less  defiantly,  but  I  got  rid  of  them,  and  poor 
Ernest  came  out  again,  looking  white,  frightened  and  up- 
set. He  had  heard  voices,  but  no  more,  and  did  not  feel 
sure  that  the  enemy  might  not  be  gaining  over  me.  We 
sported  the  oak  now,  and  before  long  he  began  to  re- 
cover. 

After  breakfast,  we  discussed  the  situation.  I  had 
taken  away  his  wardrobe  and  books  from  Mrs.  Jupp's, 
but  had  left  his  furniture,  pictures  and  piano,  giving 
Mrs.  Jupp  the  use  of  these,  so  that  she  might  let  her  room 
furnished,  in  lieu  of  charge  for  taking  care  of  the  furni- 
ture. As  soon  as  Ernest  heard  that  his  wardrobe  was  at 
hand,  he  got  out  a  suit  of  clothes  he  had  had  before  he 
had  been  ordained,  and  put  it  on  at  once,  much,  as  I 
thought,  to  the  improvement  of  his  personal  appear- 
ance. 

Then  we  went  into  the  subject  of  his  finances.  He  had 
had  ten  pounds  from  Pryer  only  a  day  or  two  before 
he  was  apprehended,  of  which  between  seven  and  eight 
were  in  his  purse  when  he  entered  the  prison.  This 
money  was  restored  to  him  on  leaving.  He  had  always 
paid  cash  for  whatever  he  bought,  so  that  there  was 
nothing  to  be  deducted  for  debts.  Besides  this,  he  had 
his  clothes,  books  and  furniture.  He  could,  as  I  have 
said,  have  had  £100  from  his  father  if  he  had  chosen  to 
emigrate,  but  this  both  Ernest  and  I  (for  he  brought  me 


348         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

round  to  his  opinion)  agreed  it  would  be  better  to  decline. 
This  was  all  he  knew  of  as  belonging  to  him. 

He  said  he  proposed  at  once  taking  an  unfurnished  top 
back  attic  in  as  quiet  a  house  as  he  could  find,  say  at 
three  or  four  shillings  a  week,  and  looking  out  for  work 
as  a  tailor.  I  did  not  think  it  much  mattered  what  he 
began  with,  for  I  felt  pretty  sure  he  would  ere  long  find 
his  way  to  something  that  suited  him,  if  he  could  get 
a  start  with  anything  at  all.  The  difficulty  was  how  to 
get  him  started.  It  was  not  enough  that  he  should  be 
able  to  cut  out  and  make  clothes — that  he  should  have  the 
organs,  so  to  speak,  of  a  tailor;  he  must  be  put  into  a 
tailor's  shop  and  guided  for  a  little  while  by  someone 
who  knew  how  and  where  to  help  him. 

The  rest  of  the  day  he  spent  in  looking  for  a  room, 
which  he  soon  found,  and  in  familiarising  himself  with 
liberty.  In  the  evening  I  took  him  to  the  Olympic, 
where  Robson  was  then  acting  in  a  burlesque  on  Macbeth, 
Mrs.  Keeley,  if  I  remember  rightly,  taking  the  part  of 
Lady  Macbeth.  In  the  scene  before  the  murder,  Mac- 
beth had  said  he  could  not  kill  Duncan  when  he  saw  his 
boots  upon  the  landing.  Lady  Macbeth  put  a  stop  to  her 
husband's  hesitation  by  whipping  him  up  under  her  arm, 
and  carrying  him  off  the  stage,  kicking  and  screaming. 
Ernest  laughed  till  he  cried.  "What  rot  Shakespeare  is 
after  this,"  he  exclaimed,  involuntarily.  I  remembered 
his  essay  on  the  Greek  tragedians,  and  was  more  epris 
with  him  than  ever. 

Next  day  he  set  about  looking  for  employment,  and 
I  did  not  see  him  till  about  five  o'clock,  when  he  came 
and  said  that  he  had  had  no  success.  The  same  thing 
happened  the  next  day  and  the  day  after  that.  Wherever 
he  went  he  was  invariably  refused  and  often  ordered 
point  blank  out  of  the  shop ;  I  could  see  by  the  expression 
of  his  face,  though  he  said  nothing,  that  he  was  getting 
frightened,  and  began  to  think  I  should  have  to  come  to 
the  rescue.  He  said  he  had  made  a  great  many  enquiries 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         349 

and  had  always  been  told  the  same  story.  He  found  that 
it  was  easy  to  keep  on  in  an  old  line,  but  very  hard  to 
strike  out  into  a  new  one. 

He  talked  to  the  fishmonger  in  Leather  Lane,  where 
he  went  to  buy  a  bloater  for  his  tea,  casually  as  though 
from  curiosity  and  without  any  interested  motive.  "Sell," 
said  the  master  of  the  shop,  "why,  nobody  wouldn't  be- 
lieve what  can  be  sold  by  penn'orths  and  twopenn'orths 
if  you  go  the  right  way  to  work.  Look  at  whelks,  for  in- 
stance. Last  Saturday  night  me  and  my  little  Emma 
here,  we  sold  ij  worth  of  whelks  between  eight  and  half 
past  eleven  o'clock — and  almost  all  in  penn'orths  and  two- 
penn'orths — a  few  hap'orths,  but  not  many.  It  was  the 
steam  that  did  it.  We  kept  a-boiling  of  'em  hot  and  hot, 
and  whenever  the  steam  came  strong  up  from  the  cellar 
on  to  the  pavement,  the  people  bought,  but  whenever  the 
steam  went  down  they  left  off  buying;  so  we  boiled  them 
over  and  over  again  till  they  was  all  sold.  That's  just 
where  it  is;  if  you  know  your  business  you  can  sell,  if 
you  don't  you'll  soon  make  a  mess  of  it.  Why,  but  for 
the  steam,  I  should  not  have  sold  los.  worth  of  whelks 
all  the  night  through." 

This  and  many  another  yarn  of  kindred  substance 
which  he  heard  from  other  people  determined  Ernest 
more  than  ever  to  stake  on  tailoring  as  the  one  trade 
about  which  he  knew  anything  at  all,  nevertheless,  here 
were  three  or  four  days  gone  by  and  employment  seemed 
as  far  off  as  ever. 

I  now  did  what  I  ought  to  have  done  before,  that  is 
to  say,  I  called  on  my  own  tailor  whom  I  had  dealt  with 
for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century  and  asked  his  advice. 
He  declared  Ernest's  plan  to  be  hopeless.  "If,"  said  Mr. 
Larkins,  for  this  was  my  tailor's  name,  "he  had  begun 
at  fourteen,  it  might  have  done,  but  no  man  of  twenty- 
four  could  stand  being  turned  to  work  into  a  workshop 
full  of  tailors;  he  would  not  get  on  with  the  men,  nor 
the  men  with  him;  you  could  not  expect  him  to  be  'hail 


350         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

fellow,  well  met'  with  them,  and  you  could  not  expect  his 
fellow-workmen  to  like  him  if  he  was  not.  A  man  must 
have  sunk  low  through  drink  or  natural  taste  for  low 
company,  before  he  could  get  on  with  those  who  have  had 
such  a  different  training  from  his  own." 

Mr.  Larkins  said  a  great  deal  more  and  wound  up  by 
taking  me  to  see  the  place  where  his  own  men  worked. 
"This  is  a  paradise,"  he  said,  "compared  to  most  work- 
shops. What  gentleman  could  stand  this  air,  think  you, 
for  a  fortnight?" 

I  was  glad  enough  to  get  out  of  the  hot,  fetid  atmos- 
phere in  five  minutes,  and  saw  that  there  was  no  brick  of 
Ernest's  prison  to  be  loosened  by  going  and  working 
among  tailors  in  a  workshop. 

Mr.  Larkins  wound  up  by  saying  that  even  if  my  pro- 
tege were  a  much  better  workman  than  he  probably  was, 
no  master  would  give  him  employment,  for  fear  of  creat- 
ing a  bother  among  the  men. 

I  left,  feeling  that  I  ought  to  have  thought  of  all  this 
myself,  and  was  more  than  ever  perplexed  as  to  whether 
I  had  not  better  let  my  young  friend  have  a  few  thousand 
pounds  and  send  him  out  to  the  colonies,  when,  on  my 
return  home  at  about  five  o'clock,  I  found  him  waiting  for 
me,  radiant,  and  declaring  that  he  had  found  all  he 
wanted. 


CHAPTER   LXXI 

IT  seems  he  had  been  patrolling  the  streets  for  the  last 
three  or  four  nights — I  suppose  in  search  of  something 
to  do — at  any  rate  knowing  better  what  he  wanted  to  get 
than  how  to  get  it.  Nevertheless,  what  he  wanted  was 
in  reality  so  easily  to  be  found  that  it  took  a  highly 
educated  scholar  like  himself  to  be  unable  to  find  it.  But, 
however  this  may  be,  he  had  been  scared,  and  now  saw 
lions  where  there  were  none,  and  was  shocked  and  fright- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         351 

ened,  and  night  after  night  his  courage^.had  failed  him 
and  he  had  returned  to  his  lodgings  in  Laystall  Street 
without  accomplishing  his  errand.  He  had  not  taken  me 
into  his  confidence  upon  this  matter,  and  I  had  not  en- 
quired what  he  did  with  himself  in  the  evenings.  At  last 
he  had  concluded  that,  however  painful  it  might  be  to 
him,  he  would  call  on  Mrs.  Jupp,  who  he  thought  would 
be  able  to  help  him  if  anyone  could.  He  had  been  walk- 
ing moodily  from  seven  till  about  nine,  and  now  resolved 
to  go  straight  to  Ashpit  Place  and  make  a  mother  con- 
fessor of  Mrs.  Jupp  without  more  delay. 

Of  all  tasks  that  could  be  performed  by  mortal  woman 
there  was  none  which  Mrs.  Jupp  would  have  liked  better 
than  the  one  Ernest  was  thinking  of  imposing  upon  her ; 
nor  do  I  know  that  in  his  scared  and  broken-down  state 
he  could  have  done  much  better  than  he  now  proposed. 
Mrs.  Jupp  would  have  made  it  very"  easy  for  him  to 
open  his  grief  to  her;  indeed,  she  would  have  coaxed  it  all 
out  of  him  before  he  knew  where  he  was ;  but  the  fates 
were  against  Mrs.  Jupp,  and  the  meeting  between  my 
hero  and  his  former  landlady  was  postponed  sine  die,  for 
his  determination  had  hardly  been  formed  and  he  had  not 
gone  more  than  a  hundred  yards  in  the  direction  of  Mrs. 
Jupp's  house,  when  a  woman  accosted  him. 

He  was  turning  from  her,  as  he  had  turned  from  so 
many  others,  when  she  started  back  with  a  movement 
that  aroused  his  curiosity.  He  had  hardly  seen  her  face, 
but  being  determined  to  catch  sight  of  it,  followed  her 
as  she  hurried  away,  and  passed  her ;  then  turning  round 
he  saw  that  she  was  none  other  than  Ellen,  the  housemaid 
who  had  been  dismissed  by  his  mother  eight  years  pre- 
viously. 

He  ought  to  have  assigned  Ellen's  unwillingness  to  see 
him  to  its  true  cause,  but  a  guilty  conscience  made  him 
think  she  had  heard  of  his  disgrace  and  was  turning  away 
from  him  in  contempt.  Brave  as  had  been  his  resolu- 
tions about  facing  the  world,  this  was  more  than  he  was 


352         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

prepared  for.  "What!  you  too  shun  me,  Ellen?"  he 
exclaimed. 

The  girl  was  crying  bitterly  and  did  not  understand 
him.  "Oh,  Master  Ernest,"  she  sobbed,  "let  me  go; 
you  are  too  good  for  the  likes  of  me  to  speak  to  now." 

"Why,  Ellen,"  said  he,  "what  nonsense  you  talk;  you 
haven't  been  in  prison,  have  you?" 

"Oh,  no,  no,  no,  not  so  bad  as  that,"  she  exclaimed 
passionately. 

"Well,  I  have,"  said  Ernest,  with  a  forced  laugh;  "I 
came  out  three  or  four  days  ago  after  six  months  with 
hard  labour." 

Ellen  did  not  believe  him,  but  she  looked  at  him  with  a 
"Lor' !  Master  Ernest,"  and  dried  her  eyes  at  once.  The 
ice  was  broken  between  them,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact 
Ellen  had  been  in  prison  several  times,  and  though  she 
did  not  believe  Ernest,  his  merely  saying  he  had  been  in 
prison  made  her  feel  more  at  ease  with  him.  For  her 
there  were  two  classes  of  people,  those  who  had  been  in 
prison  and  those  who  had  not.  The  first  she  looked  upon 
as  fellow-creatures  and  more  or  less  Christians,  the  sec- 
ond, with  few  exceptions,  she  regarded  with  suspicion, 
not  wholly  unmingled  with  contempt. 

Then  Ernest  told  her  what  had  happened  to  him  dur- 
ing the  last  six  months,  and  by-and-by  she  believed  him. 

"Master  Ernest,"  said  she,  after  they  had  talked  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  or  so,  "there's  a  place  over  the  way 
where  they  sell  tripe  and  onions.  I  know  you  was  always 
very  fond  of  tripe  and  onions;  let's  go  over  and  have 
some,  and  we  can  talk  better  there." 

So  the  pair  crossed  the  street  and  entered  the  tripe 
shop;  Ernest  ordered  supper. 

"And  how  is  your  pore  dear  mamma,  and  your  dear 
papa,  Master  Ernest,"  said  Ellen,  who  had  now  recov- 
ered herself  and  was  quite  at  home  with  my  hero.  "Oh, 
dear,  dear  me,"  she  said,  "I  did  love  your  pa ;  he  was  a 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         353 

good  gentleman,  he  was,  and  your  ma  too;  it  would  do 
anyone  good  to  live  with  her,  I'm  sure." 

Ernest  was  surprised  and  hardly  knew  what  to  say.  He 
had  expected  to  find  Ellen  indignant  at  the  way  she  had 
been  treated,  and  inclined  to  lay  the  blame  of  her  having 
fallen  to  her  present  state  at  his  father's  and  mother's 
door.  It  was  not  so.  Her  only  recollection  of  Battersby 
was  as  of  a  place  where  she  had  had  plenty  to  eat  and 
drink,  not  too  much  hard  work,  and  where  she  had  not 
been  scolded.  When  she  heard  that  Ernest  had  quarrelled 
with  his  father  and  mother  she  assumed  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  the  fault  must  lie  entirely  with  Ernest. 

"Oh,  your  pore,  pore  ma!"  said  Ellen.  "She  was 
always  so  very  fond  of  you,  Master  Ernest:  you  was 
always  her  favourite ;  I  can't  abear  to  think  of  anything 
between  you  and  her.  To  think  now  of  the  way  she 
used  to  have  me  into  the  dining-room  and  teach  me  my 
catechism,  that  she  did!  Oh,  Master  Ernest,  you  really 
must  go  and  make  it  all  up  with  her ;  indeed  you  must." 

Ernest  felt  rueful,  but  he  had  resisted  so  valiantly 
already  that  the  devil  might  have  saved  himself  the 
trouble  of  trying  to  get  at  him  through  Ellen  in  the  mat- 
ter of  his  father  and  mother.  He  changed  the  subject, 
and  the  pair  warmed  to  one  another  as  they  had  their 
tripe  and  pots  of  beer.  Of  all  people  in  the  world  Ellen 
was  perhaps  the  one  to  whom  Ernest  could  have  spoken 
most  freely  at  this  juncture.  He  told  her  what  he  thought 
he  could  have  told  to  no  one  else. 

"You  know,  Ellen,"  he  concluded,  "I  had  learnt  as  a 
boy  things  that  I  ought  not  to  have  learnt,  and  had  never 
had  a  chance  of  that  which  would  have  set  me  straight." 

"Gentlefolks  is  always  like  that,"  said  Ellen  musingly. 

"I  believe  you  are  right,  but  I  am  no  longer  a  gentle- 
man, Ellen,  and  I  don't  see  why  I  should  be  'like  that' 
any  longer,  my  dear.  I  want  you  to  help  me  to  be  like 
something  else  as  soon  as  possible." 


354         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

"Lor' !  Master  Ernest,  whatever  can  you  be  meaning  ?" 

The  pair  soon  afterwards  left  the  eating-house  and 
walked  up  Fetter  Lane  together. 

Ellen  had  had  hard  times  since  she  had  left  Battersby, 
but  they  had  left  little  trace  upon  her. 

Ernest  saw  only  the  fresh-looking,  smiling  face,  the 
dimpled  cheek,  the  clear  blue  eyes  and  lovely,  sphinx-like 
lips  which  he  had  remembered  as  a  boy.  At  nineteen  she 
had  looked  older  than  she  was,  now  she  looked  much 
younger;  indeed  she  looked  hardly  older  than  when 
Ernest  had  last  seen  her,  and  it  would  have  taken  a  man 
of  much  greater  experience  than  he  possessed  to  suspect 
how  completely  she  had  fallen  from  her  first  estate.  It 
never  occurred  to  him  that  the  poor  condition  of  her 
wardrobe  was  due  to  her  passion  for  ardent  spirits,  and 
that  first  and  last  she  had  served  five  or  six  times  as  much 
time  in  gaol  as  he  had.  He  ascribed  the  poverty  of  her 
attire  to  the  attempts  to  keep  herself  respectable,  which 
Ellen  during  supper  had  more  than  once  alluded  to. 
He  had  been  charmed  with  the  way  in  which  she  had  de- 
clared that  a  pint  of  beer  would  make  her  tipsy,  and  had 
only  allowed  herself  to  be  forced  into  drinking  the  whole 
after  a  good  deal  of  remonstrance.  To  him  she  appeared 
a  very  angel  dropped  from  the  sky,  and  all  the  more  easy 
to  get  on  with  for  being  a  fallen  one. 

As  he  walked  up  Fetter  Lane  with  her  towards  Laystall 
Street,  he  thought  of  the  wonderful  goodness  of  God 
towards  him  in  throwing  in  his  way  the  very  person  of 
all  others  whom  he  was  most  glad  to  see,  and  whom,  of 
all  others,  in  spite  of  her  living  so  near  him,  he  might 
have  never  fallen  in  with  but  for  a  happy  accident. 

When  people  get  it  into  their  heads  that  they  are  being 
specially  favoured  by  the  Almighty,  they  had  better  as  a 
general  rule  mind  their  p's  and  q's,  and  when  they  think 
they  see  the  devil's  drift  with  more  special  clearness,  let 
them  remember  that  he  has  had  much  more  experience 
than  they  have,  and  is  probably  meditating  mischief. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         355 

Already  during  supper  the  thought  that  in  Ellen  at  last 
he  had  found  a  woman  whom  he  could  love  well  enough 
to  wish  to  live  with  ancl  marry  had  flitted  across  his  mind, 
and  the  more  they  had  chatted  the  more  reasons  kept 
suggesting  themselves  for  thinking  that  what  might  be 
folly  in  ordinary  cases  would  not  be  folly  in  his. 

He  must  marry  someone;  that  was  already  settled. 
He  could  not  marry  a  lady;  that  was  absurd.  He  must 
marry  a  poor  woman.  Yes,  but  a  fallen  one?  Was  he 
not  fallen  himself?  Ellen  would  fall  no  more.  He  had 
only  to  look  at  her  to  be  sure  of  this.  He  could  not  live 
with  her  in  sin,  not  for  more  than  the  shortest  time  that 
could  elapse  before  their  marriage ;  he  no  longer  believed 
in  the  supernatural  element  of  Christianity,  but  the  Chris- 
tian morality  at  any  rate  was  indisputable.  Besides, 
they  might  have  children,  and  a  stigma  would  rest  upon 
them.-  Whom  had  he  to  consult  but  himself  now?  His 
father  and  mother  never  need  know,  and  even  if  they  did, 
they  should  be  thankful  to  see  him  married  to  any  woman 
who  would  make  him  happy  as  Ellen  would.  As  for  not 
being  able  to  afford  marriage,  how  did  poor  people  do? 
Did  not  a  good  wife  rather  help  matters  than  not?  Where 
one  could  live  two  could  do  so,  and  if  Ellen  was  three  or 
four  years  older  than  he  was — well,  what  was  that  ? 

Have  you,  gentle  reader,  ever  loved  at  first  sight? 
When  you  fell  in  love  at  first  sight,  how  long,  let  me  ask, 
did  it  take  you  to  become  ready  to  fling  every  other  con- 
sideration to  the  winds  except  that  of  obtaining  posses- 
sion of  the  loved  one?  Or  rather,  how  long  would  it  have 
taken  you  if  you  had  had  no  father  or  mother,  nothing  to 
lose  in  the  way  of  money,  position,  friends,  professional 
advancement,  or  what  not,  and  if  the  object  of  your 
affections  was  as  free  from  all  these  impedimenta  as  you 
were  yourself? 

If  you  were  a  young  John  Stuart  Mill,  perhaps  it 
would  have  taken  you  some  time,  but  suppose  your  na- 
ture was  Quixotic,  impulsive,  altruistic,  guileless;  sup- 


356         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

pose  you  were  a  hungry  man  starving  for  something  to 
love  and  lean  upon,  for  one  whose  burdens  you  might 
bear,  and  who  might  help  you  to  bear  yours.  Suppose 
you  were  down  on  your  luck,  still  stunned  by  a  horrible 
shock,  and  this  bright  vista  of  a  happy  future  floated 
suddenly  before  you,  how  long  under  these  circumstances 
do  you  think  you  would  reflect  before  you  would  decide 
on  embracing  what  chance  had  thrown  in  your  way? 

It  did  not  take  my  hero  long,  for  before  he  got  past  the 
ham  and  beef  shop  near  the  top  of  Fetter  Lane,  he  had 
told  Ellen  that  she  must  come  home  with  him  and  live 
with  him  till  they  could  get  married,  which  they  would  do 
upon  the  first  day  that  the  law  allowed. 

I  think  the  devil  must  have  chuckled  and  made  toler- 
ably sure  of  his  game  this  time. 


CHAPTER   LXXII 

ERNEST  told  Ellen  of  his  difficulty  about  finding  employ- 
ment. 

"But  what  do  you  think  of  going  into  a  shop  for,  my 
dear,"  said  Ellen.  "Why  not  take  a  little  shop  your- 
self?" 

Ernest  asked  how  much  this  would  cost.  Ellen  told 
him  that  he  might  take  a  house  in  some  small  street, 
say  near  the  "Elephant  and  Castle,"  for  175.  or  i8s.  a 
week,  and  let  off  the  two  top  floors  for  ios.,  keeping  the 
back  parlour  and  shop  for  themselves.  If  he  could  raise 
five  or  six  pounds  to  buy  some  second-hand  clothes  to 
stock  the  shop  with,  they  could  mend  them  and  clean 
tbem,  and  she  could  look  after  the  women's  clothes  while 
he  did  the  men's.  Then  he  could  mend  and  make,  if  he 
could  get  the  orders. 

They  could  soon  make  a  business  of  £2  a  week  in  this 
way ;  she  had  a  friend  who  began  like  that  and  had  now 
moved  to  a  better  shop,  where  she  made  £5  or  £6  a  week 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         357 

at  least — and  she,  Ellen,  had  done  the  greater  part  of  the 
buying  and  selling  herself. 

Here  was  a  new  light  indeed.  It  was  as  though  he  had 
got  his  £5000  back  again  all  of  a  sudden,  and  perhaps 
ever  so  much  more  later  on  into  the  bargain.  Ellen 
seemed  more  than  ever  to  be  his  good  genius. 

She  went  out  and  got  a  few  rashers  of  bacon  for  his 
and  her  breakfast.  She  cooked  them  much  more  nicely 
than  he  had  been  able  to  do,  and  laid  breakfast  for  him 
and  made  coffee,  and  some  nice  brown  toast.  Ernest 
had  been  his  own  cook  and  housemaid  for  the  last  few 
days  and  had  not  given  himself  satisfaction.  Here  he 
suddenly  found  himself  with  someone  to  wait  on  him 
again.  Not  only  had  Ellen  pointed  out  to  him  how  he 
could  earn  a  living  when  no  one  except  himself  had 
known  how  to  advise  him,  but  here  she  was  so  pretty 
and  smiling,  looking  after  even  his  comforts,  and 
restoring  him  practically  in  all  respects  that  he  much 
cared  about  to  the  position  which  he  had  lost — or  rather 
putting  him  in  one  that  he  already  liked  much  better. 
No  wonder  he  was  radiant  when  he  came  to  explain  his 
plans  to  me. 

He  had  some  difficulty  in  telling  all  that  had  happened. 
He  hesitated,  blushed,  hummed  and  hawed.  Misgivings 
began  to  cross  his  mind  when  he  found  himself  obliged  to 
tell  his  story  to  someone  else.  He  felt  inclined  to  slur 
things  over,  but  I  wanted  to  get  at  the  facts,  so  I  helped 
him  over  the  bad  places,  and  questioned  him  till  I  had 
got  out  pretty  nearly  the  whole  story  as  I  have  given  it 
above. 

I  hope  I  did  not  show  it,  but  I  was  very  angry.  I  had 
begun  to  like  Ernest.  I  don't  know  why,  but  I  never  have 
heard  that  any  young  man  to  whom  I  had  become  at- 
tached was  going  to  get  married  without  hating  his  in- 
tended instinctively,  though  I  had  never  seen  her;  I 
have  observed  that  most  bachelors  feel  the  same  thing, 
though  we  are  generally  at  some  pains  to  hide  the  fact. 


358         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Perhaps  it  is  because  we  know  we  ought  to  have  got 
married  ourselves.  Ordinarily  we  say  we  are  delighted 
— in  the  present  case  I  did  not  feel  obliged  to  do  this, 
though  I  made  an  effort  to  conceal  my  vexation.  That 
a  young  man  of  much  promise  who  was  heir  also  to  what 
was  now  a  handsome  fortune,  should  fling  himself  away 
upon  such  a  person  as  Ellen  was  quite  too  provoking,  and 
the  more  so  because  of  the  unexpectedness  of  the  whole 
affair. 

I  begged  him  not  to  marry  Ellen  yet — not  at  least  until 
he  had  known  her  for  a  longer  time.  He  would  not  hear 
of  it;  he  had  given  his  word,  and  if  he  had  not  given  it 
he  should  go  and  give  it  at  once.  I  had  hitherto  found 
him  upon  most  matters  singularly  docile  and  easy  to  man- 
age, but  on  this  point  I  could  dp  nothing  with  him.  His 
recent  victory  over  his  father  and  mother  had  increased 
his  strength,  and  I  was  nowhere.  I  would  have  told  him 
of  his  true  position,  but  I  knew  very  well  that  this  would 
only  make  him  more  bent  on  having  his  own  way — for 
with  so  much  money  why  should  he  not  please  himself? 
I  said  nothing,  therefore,  on  this  head,  and  yet  all  that 
I  could  urge  went  for  very  little  with  one  who  believed 
himself,  to  be  an  artisan  or  nothing. 

Really  from  his  own  standpoint  there  was  nothing  very 
outrageous  in  what  he  was  doing.  He  had  known  and 
been  very  fond  of  Ellen  years  before.  He  knew  her  to 
come  of  respectable  people,  and  to  have  borne  a  good 
character,  and  to  have  been  universally  liked  at  Battersby. 
She  was  then  a  quick,  smart,  hard-working  girl — and  a 
very  pretty  one.  When  at  last  they  met  again  she  was  on 
her  best  behaviour — in  fact,  she  was  modesty  and  de- 
mureness  itself.  What  wonder,  then,  that  his  imagination 
should  fail  to  realise  the  changes  that  eight  years  must 
have  worked?  He  knew  too  much  against  himself,  and 
was  too  bankrupt  in  love  to  be  squeamish;  if  Ellen  had 
been  only  what  he  thought  her,  and  if  his  prospects  had 
been  in  reality  no  better  than  he  believed  they  were,  I 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         359 

do  not  know  that  there  is  anything  much  more  imprudent 
in  what  Ernest  proposed  than  there  is  in  half  the  mar- 
riages that  take  place  every  day. 

There  was  nothing  for  it,  however,  but  to  make  the 
best  of  the  inevitable,  so  I  wished  my  young  friend  good 
fortune,  and  told  him  he  could  have  whatever  money  he 
wanted  to  start  his  shop  with,  if  what  he  had  in  hand  was 
not  sufficient.  He  thanked  me,  asked  me  to  be  kind 
enough  to  let  him  do  all  my  mending  and  repairing,  and 
to  get  him  any  other  like  orders  that  I  could,  and  left  me 
to  my  own  reflections. 

I  was  even  more  angry  when  he  was  gone  than  I  had 
been  while  he  was  with  me.  His  frank,  boyish  face  had 
beamed  with  a  happiness  that  had  rarely  visited  it.  Ex- 
cept at  Cambridge  he  had  hardly  known  what  happiness 
meant,  and  even  there  his  life  had  been  clouded  as  of 
a  man  for  whom  wisdom  at  the  greatest  of  its  entrances 
was  quite  shut  out.  I  had  seen  enough  of  the  world 
and  of  him  to  have  observed  this,  but  it  was  impossible, 
or  I  thought  it  had  been  impossible,  for  me  to  have  helped 
him. 

Whether  I  ought  to  have  tried  to  help  him  or  not  I  do 
not  know,  but  I  am  sure  that  the  young  of  all  animals 
often  do  want  help  upon  matters  about  which  anyone 
would  say  a  priori  that  there  should  be  no  difficulty. 
One  would  think  that  a  young  seal  would  want  no  teach- 
ing how  to  swim,  nor  yet  a  bird  to  fly,  but  in  practice  a 
young  seal  drowns  if  put  out  of  its  depth  before  its  par- 
ents have  taught  it  to  swim ;  and  so  again,  even  the  young 
hawk  must  be  taught  to  fly  before  it  can  do  so. 

I  grant  that  the  tendency  of  the  times  is  to  exaggerate 
the  good  which  teaching  can  do,  but  in  trying  to  teach 
too  much,  in  most  matters,  we  have  neglected  others  in 
respect  of  which  a  little  sensible  teaching  would  do  no 
harm. 

I  know  it  is  the  fashion  to  say  that  young  people  must 
find  out  things  for  themselves,  and  so  they  probably 


360         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

would  if  they  had  fair  play  to  the  extent  of  not  having 
obstacles  put  in  their  way.  But  they  seldom  have  fair 
play ;  as  a  general  rule  they  meet  with  foul  play,  and  foul 
play  from  those  who  live  by  selling  them  stones  made  into 
a  great  variety  of  shapes  and  sizes  so  as  to  form  a  toler- 
able imitation  of  bread. 

Some  are  lucky  enough  to  meet  with  few  obstacles, 
some  are  plucky  enough  to  override  them,  but  in  the 
greater  number  of  cases,  if  people  are  saved  at  all  they 
are  saved  so  as  by  fire. 

While  Ernest  was  with  me  Ellen  was  looking  out  for  a 
shop  on  the  south  side  of  the  Thames  near  the  "Elephant 
and  Castle,"  which  was  then  almost  a  new  and  a  very 
rising  neighbourhood.  By  one  o'clock  she  had  found 
several  from  which  a  selection  was  to  be  made,  and  be- 
fore night  the  pair  had  made  their  choice. 

Ernest  brought  Ellen  to  me.  I  did  not  want  to  see 
her,  but  could  not  well  refuse.  He  had  laid  out  a  few 
of  his  shillings  upon  her  wardrobe,  so  that  she  was  neatly 
dressed,  and,  indeed,  she  looked  very  pretty  and  so  good 
that  I  could  hardly  be  surprised  at  Ernest's  infatuation 
when  the  other  circumstances  of  the  case  were  taken  into 
consideration.  Of  course  we  hated  one  another  instinc- 
tively from  the  first  moment  we  set  eyes  on  one  another, 
but  we  each  told  Ernest  that  we  had  been  most  favour- 
ably impressed. 

Then  I  was  taken  to  see  the  shop.  An  empty  house  is 
like  a  stray  dog  or  a  body  from  which  life  has  departed. 
Decay  sets  in  at  once  in  every  part  of  it,  and  what  mould 
and  wind  and  weather  would  spare,  street  boys  commonly 
destroy.  Ernest's  shop  in  its  untenanted  state  was  a 
dirty,  unsavoury  place  enough.  The  house  was  not  old, 
but  it  had  been  run  up  by  a  jerry-builder  and  its  con- 
stitution had  no  stamina  whatever.  It  was  only  by  being 
kept  warm  and  quiet  that  it  would  remain  in  health  for 
many  months  together.  Now  it  had  been  empty  for 
some  weeks  and  the  cats  had  got  in  by  night,  while  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         361 

boys  had  broken  the  windows  by  day.  The  parlour  floor 
was  covered  with  stones  and  dirt,  and  in  the  area  was  a 
dead  dog  which  had  been  killed  in  the  street  and  been 
thrown  down  into  the  first  unprotected  place  that  could 
be  found.  There  was  a  strong  smell  throughout  the 
house,  but  whether  it  was  bugs,  or  rats,  or  cats,  or  drains, 
or  a  compound  of  all  four,  I  could  not  determine.  The 
sashes  did  not  fit,  the  flimsy  doors  hung  badly ;  the  skirt- 
ing was  gone  in  several  places,  and  there  were  not  a  few 
holes  in  the  floor;  the  locks  were  loose,  and  paper  was 
torn  and  dirty;  the  stairs  were  weak  and  one  felt  the 
treads  give  as  one  went  up  them. 

Over  and  above  these  drawbacks  the  house  had  an  ill 
name,  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  wife  of  the  last  oc- 
cupant had  hanged  herself  in  it  not  very  many  weeks 
previously.  She  had  set  down  a  bloater  before  the  fire 
for  her  husband's  tea,  and  had  made  him  a  round  of 
toast.  She  then  left  the  room  as  though  about  to  return 
to  it  shortly,  but  instead  of  doing  so  she  went  into  the 
back  kitchen  and  hanged  herself  without  a  word.  It 
was  this  which  had  kept  the  house  empty  so  long  in  spite 
of  its  excellent  position  as  a  corner  shop.  The  last 
tenant  had  left  immediately  after  the  inquest,  and  if  the 
owner  had  had  it  done  up  then  people  would  have  got 
over  the  tragedy  that  had  been  enacted  in  it,  but  the  com- 
bination of  bad  condition  and  bad  fame  had  hindered 
many  from  taking  it,  who,  like  Ellen,  could  see  that  it  had 
great  business  capabilities.  Almost  anything  would  have 
sold  there,  but  it  happened  also  that  there  was  no  second- 
hand clothes  shop  in  close  proximity,  so  that  everything 
combined  in  its  favour,  except  its  filthy  state  and  its 
reputation. 

When  I  saw  it,  I  thought  I  would  rather  die  than  live 
in  such  an  awful  place — but  then  I  had  been  living  in  the 
Temple  for  the  last  five  and  twenty  years.  Ernest  was 
lodging  in  Laystall  Street  and  had  just  come  out  of 
prison ;  before  this  he  had  lived  in  Ashpit  Place,  so  that 


362         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

this  house  had  no  terrors  for  him  provided  he  could  get 
it  done  up.  The  difficulty  was  that  the  landlord  was  hard 
to  move  in  this  respect.  It  ended  in  my  rinding  the  money 
to  do  everything  that  was  wanted,  and  taking  a  lease  of 
the  house  for  five  years  at  the  same  rental  as  that  paid 
by  the  last  occupant.  I  then  sublet  it  to  Ernest, 
of  course  taking  care  that  it  was  put  more  efficiently 
into  repair  than  his  landlord  was  at  all  likely  to  have 
put  it. 

A  week  later  I  called  and  found  everything  so  com- 
pletely transformed  that  I  should  hardly  have  recognised 
the  house.  All  the  ceilings  had  been  whitewashed,  all 
the  rooms  papered,  the  broken  glass  hacked  out  and  rein- 
stated, the  defective  wood-work  renewed,  all  the  sashes, 
cupboards  and  doors  had  been  painted.  The  drains  had 
been  thoroughly  overhauled,  everything  in  fact  that  could 
be  done  had  been  done,  and  the  rooms  now  looked  as 
cheerful  as  they  had  been  forbidding  when  I  had  last 
seen  them.  The  people  who  had  done  the  repairs  were 
supposed  to  have  cleaned  the  house  down  before  leaving, 
but  Ellen  had  given  it  another  scrub  from  top  to  bottom 
herself  after  they  were  gone,  and  it  was  as  clean  as  a 
new  pin.  I  almost  felt  as  though  I  could  have  lived  in  it 
myself,  and  as  for  Ernest,  he  was  in  the  seventh  heaven. 
He  said  it  was  all  my  doing  and  Ellen's. 

There  was  already  a  counter  in  the  shop  and  a  few 
fittings,  so  that  nothing  now  remained  but  to  get  some 
stock  and  set  them  out  for  sale.  Ernest  said  he  could  not 
begin  better  than  by  selling  his  clerical  wardrobe  and  his 
books,  for  though  the  shop  was  intended  especially  for  the 
sale  of  second-hand  clothes,  yet  Ellen  said  there  was  no 
reason  why  they  should  not  sell  a  few  books  too;  so  a 
beginning  was  to  be  made  by  selling  the  books  he  had  had 
at  school  and  college  at  about  one  shilling  a  volume,  tak- 
ing them  all  round,  and  I  have  heard  him  say  that  he 
learned  more  that  proved  of  practical  use  to  him  through 
stocking  his  books  on  a  bench  in  front  of  his  shop  and 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         363 

selling  them,  than  he  had  done  from  all  the  years  of  study 
which  he  had  bestowed  upon  their  contents. 

For  the  enquiries  that  were  made  of  him,  whether  he 
had  such  and  such  a  book,  taught  him  what  he  could  sell 
and  what  he  could  not;  how  much  he  could  get  for  this, 
and  how  much  for  that.  Having  made  ever  such  a  little 
beginning  with  books,  he  took  to  attending  book  sales  as 
well  as  clothes  sales,  and  ere  long  this  branch  of  his 
business  became  no  less  important  than  the  tailoring,  and 
would,  I  have  no  doubt,  have  been  the  one  which  he 
would  have  settled  down  to  exclusively,  if  he  had  been 
called  upon  to  remain  a  tradesman ;  but  this  is  anticipat- 
ing. 

I  made  a  contribution  and  a  stipulation.  Ernest  wanted 
to  sink  the  gentleman  completely,  until  such  time  as  he 
could  work  his  way  up  again.  If  he  had  been  left  to 
himself  he  would  have  lived  with  Ellen  in  the  shop  back 
parlour  and  kitchen,  and  have  let  out  both  the  upper  floors 
according  to  his  original  programme.  I  did  not  want  him, 
however,  to  cut  himself  adrift  from  music,  letters  and 
polite  life,  and  feared  that  unless  he  had  some  kind  of 
den  into  which  he  could  retire  he  would  ere  long  become 
the  tradesman  and  nothing  else.  I  therefore  insisted  on 
taking  the  first  floor  front  and  back  myself,  and  furnish- 
ing them  with  the  things  which  had  been  left  at  Mrs. 
Jupp's.  I  bought  these  things  of  him  for  a  small  sum 
and  had  them  moved  into  his  present  abode. 

I  went  to  Mrs.  Jupp's  to  arrange  all  this,  as  Ernest  did 
not  like  going  to  Ashpit  Place.  I  had  half  expected  to 
find  the  furniture  sold  and  Mrs.  Jupp  gone,  but  it  was 
not  so ;  with  all  her  faults  the  poor  old  woman  was  per- 
fectly honest. 

I  told  her  that  Pryer  had  taken  all  Ernest's  money  and 
run  away  with  it.  She  hated  Pryer.  "I  never  knew  any- 
one," she  exclaimed,  "as  white-livered  in  the  face  as  that 
Pryer;  he  hasn't  got  an  upright  vein  in  his  whole  body. 
Why,  all  that  time  when  he  used  to  come  breakfasting 


364         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

with  Mr.  Pontifex  morning  after  morning,  it  took  me  to 
a  perfect  Shadow  the  way  he  carried  on.  There  was  no 
doing  anything  to  please  him  right.  First  I  used  to  get 
them  eggs  and  bacon,  and  he  didn't  like  that ;  and  then  I 
got  him  a  bit  of  fish,  and  he  didn't  like  that,  or  else  it  was 
too  dear,  and  you  know  fish  is  dearer  than  ever ;  and  then 
I  got  him  a  bit  of  German,  and  he  said  it  rose  on  him; 
then  I  tried  sausages,  and  he  said  they  hit  him  in  the  eye 
worse  even  than  German ;  oh !  how  I  used  to  wander  my 
room  and  fret  about  it  inwardly  and  cry  for  hours,  and 
all  about  them  paltry  breakfasts — and  it  wasn't  Mr.  Ponti- 
fex ;  he'd  like  anything  that  anyone  chose  to  give  him. 

"And  so  the  piano's  to  go,"  she  continued.  "What 
beautiful  tunes  Mr.  Pontifex  did  play  upon  it,  to  be  sure ; 
and  there  was  one  I  liked  better  than  any  I  ever  heard.  I 
was  in  the  room  when  he  played  it  once  and  when  I  said, 
'Oh,  Mr.  Pontifex,  that's  the  kind  of  woman  I  am/  he 
said,  'No,  Mrs.  Jupp,  it  isn't,  for  this  tune  is  old,  but  no 
one  can  say  you  are  old.'  But,  bless  you,  he  meant  noth- 
ing by  it,  it  was  only  his  mucky  flattery." 

Like  myself,  she  was  vexed  at  his  getting  married. 
She  didn't  like  his  being  married,  and  she  didn't  like  his 
not  being  married — but,  anyhow,  it  was  Ellen's  fault,  not 
his,  and  she  hoped  he  would  be  happy.  "But  after  all," 
she  concluded,  "it  ain't  you  and  it  ain't  me,  and  it  ain't 
him  and  it  ain't  her.  It's  what  you  must  call  the  fortunes 
of  matterimony,  for  there  ain't  no  other  word  for  it." 

In  the  course  of  the  afternoon  the  furniture  arrived 
at  Ernest's  new  abode.  In  the  first  floor  we  placed  the 
piano,  table,  pictures,  bookshelves,  a  couple  of  arm- 
chairs, and  all  the  little  household  gods  which  he  had 
brought  from  Cambridge.  The  back  room  was  furnished 
exactly  as  his  bedroom  at  Ashpit  Place  had  been — new 
things  being  got  for  the  bridal  apartment  downstairs. 
These  two  first-floor  rooms  I  insisted  on  retaining  as 
my  own,  but  Ernest  was  to  use  them  whenever  he 
pleased ;  he  was  never  to  sublet  even  the  bedroom,  but 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         365 

was  to  keep  it  for  himself  in  case  his  wife  should  be  ill 
at  any  time,  or  in  case  he  might  be  ill  himself. 

In  less  than  a  fortnight  from  the  time  of  his  leaving 
prison  all  these  arrangements  had  been  completed,  and 
Ernest  felt  that  he  had  again  linked  himself  on  to  the 
life  which  he  had  led  before  his  imprisonment — with  a 
few  important  differences,  however,  which  were  greatly 
to  his  advantage.  He  was  no  longer  a  clergyman ;  he  was 
about  to  marry  a  woman  to  whom  he  was  much  attached, 
and  he  had  parted  company  for  ever  with  his  father 
and  mother. 

True,  he  had  lost  all  his  money,  his  reputation,  and 
his  position  as  a  gentleman ;  he  had,  in  fact,  had  to  burn 
his  house  down  in  order  to  get  his  roast  sucking  pig; 
but  if  asked  whether  he  would  rather  be  as  he  was  now 
or  as  he  was  on  the  day  before  his  arrest,  he  would  not 
have  had  a  moment's  hesitation  in  preferring  his  present 
to  his  past.  If  his  present  could  only  have  been  pur- 
chased at  the  expense  of  all  that  he  had  gone  through, 
it  was  still  worth  purchasing  at  the  price,  and  he  would 
go  through  it  all  again  if  necessary.  The  loss  of  the 
money  was  the  worst,  but  Ellen  said  she  was  sure  they 
would  get  on,  and  she  knew  all  about  it.  As  for  the  loss 
of  reputation — considering  that  he  had  Ellen  and  me  left, 
it  did  not  come  to  much. 

I  saw  the  house  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  on  which 
all  was  finished,  and  there  remained  nothing  but  to  buy 
some  stock  and  begin  selling.  When  I  was  gone,  after 
he  had  had  his  tea,  he  stole  up  to  his  castle — the  first 
floor  front.  He  lit  his  pipe  and  sat  down  to  the  piano. 
He  played  Handel  for  an  hour  or  so,  and  then  set  him- 
self to  the  table  to  read  and  write.  He  took  all  his 
sermons  and  all  the  theological  works  he  had  begun  to 
compose  during  the  time  he  had  been  a  clergyman  and 
put  them  in  the  fire;  as  he  saw  them  consume  he  felt 
as  though  he  had  got  rid  of  another  incubus.  Then  he 
took  up  some  of  the  little  pieces  he  had  begun  to  write 


366         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

during  the  latter  part  of  his  undergraduate  life  at  Cam- 
bridge, and  began  to  cut  them  about  and  rewrite  them. 
As  he  worked  quietly  at  these  till  he  heard ,  the  clock 
strike  ten  and  it  was  time  to  go  to  bed,  he  felt  that  he 
was  now  not  only  happy  but  supremely  happy. 

Next  day  Ellen  took  him  to  Debenham's  auction 
rooms,  and  they  surveyed  the  lots  of  clothes  which  were 
hung  up  all  round  the  auction  room  to  be  viewed.  Ellen 
had  had  sufficient  experience  to  know  about  how  much 
each  lot  ought  to  fetch;  she  overhauled  lot  after  lot, 
and  valued  it;  in  a  very  short  time  Ernest  himself  be- 
gan to  have  a  pretty  fair  idea  what  each  lot  should  go 
for,  and  before  the  morning  was  over  valued  a  dozen 
lots  running  at  prices  about  which  Ellen  said  he  would 
not  hurt  if  he  could  get  them  for  that. 

So  far  from  disliking  this  work  or  finding  it  tedious, 
he  liked  it  very  much,  indeed  he  would  have  liked  any- 
thing which  did  not  overtax  his  physical  strength,  and 
which  held  out  a  prospect  of  bringing  him  in  money. 
Ellen  would  not  let  him  buy  anything  on  the  occasion  of 
this  sale;  she  said  he  had  better  see  one  sale  first  an  1 
watch  how  prices  actually  went.  So  at  twelve  o'clock 
when  the  sale  began,  he  saw  the  lots  sold  which  he  and 
Ellen  had  marked,  and  by  the  time  the  sale  was  over  he 
knew  enough  to  be  able  to  bid  with  safety  whenever 
he  should  actually  want  to  buy.  Knowledge  of  this  sort 
is  very  easily  acquired  by  anyone  who  is  in  bona  fide 
want  of  it. 

But  Ellen  did  not  want  him  to  buy  at  auctions — not 
much  at  least  at  present.  Private  dealing,  she  said,  was 
best.  If  I,  for  example,  had  any  cast-off  clothes,  he  was 
to  buy  them  from  my  laundress,  and  get  a  connection 
with  other  laundresses,  to  whom  he  might  give  a  trifle 
more  than  they  got  at  present  for  whatever  clothes  their 
masters  might  give  them,  and  yet  make  a  good  profit.  If 
gentlemen  sold  their  things,  he  was  to  try  and  get  them 
to  sell  to  him.  He  flinched  at  nothing ;  perhaps  he  would 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         367 

have  flinched  if  he  had  had  any  idea  how  outre  his  pro- 
ceedings were,  but  the  very  ignorance  of  the  world 
which  had  ruined  him  up  till  now,  by  a  happy  irony  be- 
gan to  work  its  own  cure.  If  some  malignant  fairy  had 
meant  to  curse  him  in  this  respect,  she  had  overdone  her 
malice.  He  did  not  know  he  was  doing  anything  strange. 
He  only  knew  that  he  had  no  money,  and  must  provide 
for  himself,  a  wife,  and  a  possible  family.  More  than 
this,  he  wanted  to  have  some  leisure  in  an  evening,  so 
that  he  might  read  and  write  and  keep  up  his  music. 
If  anyone  would  show  him  how  he  could  do  better  than 
he  was  doing,  he  should  be  much  obliged  to  them,  but  to 
himself  it  seemed  that  he  was  doing  sufficiently  well ;  for 
at  the  end  of  the  first  week  the  pair  found  they  had  made 
a  clear  profit  of  £3.  In  a  few  weeks  this  had  increased  to 
£4,  and  by  the  New  Year  they  had  made  a  profit  of  £5 
in  one  week. 

Ernest  had  by  this  time  been  married  some  two  months, 
for  he  had  stuck  to  his  original  plan  of  marrying  Ellen 
on  the  first  day  he  could  legally  do  so.  This  date  was  a 
little  delayed  by  the  change  of  abode  from  Laystall 
Street  to  Blackfriars,  but  on  the  first  day  that  it  could 
be  done  it  was  done.  He  had  never  had  more  than  £250 
a  year,  even  in  the  times  of  his  affluence,  so  that  a  profit 
of  £5  a  week,  if  it  could  be  maintained  steadily,  would 
place  him  where  he  had  been  as  far  as  income  went,  and, 
though  he  should  have  to  feed  two  mouths  instead  of 
one,  yet  his  expenses  in  other  ways  were  so  much  cur 
tailed  by  his  changed  social  position,  that,  take  it  ah 
round,  his  income  was  practically  what  it  had .  been  a 
twelvemonth  before.  The  next  thing  to  do  was  to  in- 
crease it,  and  put  by  money. 

Prosperity  depends,  as  we  all  know,  in  great  measure 
upon  energy  and  good  sense,  but  it  also  depends  not  a 
little  upon  pure  luck — that  is  to  say,  upon  connections 
which  are  in  such  a  tangle  that  it  is  more  easy  to  say 
that  they  do  not  exist  than  to  try  to  trace  them.  A 


368         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

neighbourhood  may  have  an  excellent  reputation  as  being 
likely  to  be  a  rising  one,  and  yet  may  become  suddenly 
eclipsed  by  another,  which  no  one  would  have  thought 
so  promising.  A  fever  hospital  may  divert  the  stream  of 
business,  or  a  new  station  attract  it ;  so  little,  indeed,  can 
be  certainly  known,  that  it  is  better  not  to  try  to  know 
more  than  is  in  everybody's  mouth,  and  to  leave  the  rest 
to  chance. 

Luck,  which  certainly  had  not  been  too  kind  to  my 
hero  hitherto,  now  seemed  to  have  taken  him  under  her 
protection.  The  neighbourhood  prospered,  and  he  with 
it.  It  seemed  as  though  he  no  sooner  bought  a  thing  and 
put  it  into  his  shop,  than  it  sold  with  a  profit  of  from 
thirty  to  fifty  per  cent.  He  learned  bookkeeping,  and 
watched  his  accounts  carefully,  following  up  any  success 
immediately ;  he  began  to  buy  other  things  besides  clothes 
— such  as  books,  music,  odds  and  ends  of  furniture,  etc. 
Whether  it  was  luck  or  business  aptitude,  or  energy,  or 
the  politeness  with  which  he  treated  all  his  customers, 
I  cannot  say — but  to  the  surprise  of  no  one  more  than 
himself,  he  went  ahead  faster  than  he  had  anticipated, 
even  in  his  wildest  dreams,  and  by  Easter  was  established 
in  a  strong  position  as  the  owner  of  a  business  which 
was  bringing  him  in  between  four  and  five  hundred  a 
year,  and  which  he  understood  how  to  extend. 


CHAPTER   LXXIII 

ELLEN  and  he  got  on  capitally,  all  the  better,  perhaps, 
because  the  disparity  between  them  was  so  great,  that 
neither  did  Ellen  want  to  be  elevated,  nor  did  Ernest 
want  to  elevate  her.  He  was  very  fond  of  her,  and  very 
kind  to  her ;  they  had  interests  which  they  could  serve  in 
common ;  they  had  antecedents  with  a  good  part  of 
which  each  was  familiar ;  they  had  each  of  them  excellent 
tempers,  and  this  was  enough.  Ellen  did  not  seem  jeal- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         369 

ous  at  Ernest's  preferring  to  sit  the  greater  part  of  his 
time  after  the  day's  work  was  done  in  the  first  floor 
front  where  I  occasionally  visited  him.  She  might  have 
come  and  sat  with  him  if  she  had  liked,  but,  somehow 
or  other,  she  generally  found  enough  to  occupy  her  down 
below.  She  had  the  tact  also  to  encourage  him  to  go  out 
of  an  evening  whenever  he  had  a  mind,  without  in  the 
least  caring  that  he  should  take  her  too — and  this  suited 
Ernest  very  well.  He  was,  I  should  say,  much  happier 
in  his  married  life  than  people  generally  are. 

At  first  it  had  been  very  painful  to  him  to  meet  any  of 
his  old  friends,  as  he  sometimes  accidentally  did,  but  this 
soon  passed ;  either  they  cut  him,  or  he  cut  them ;  it 
was  not  nice  being  cut  for  the  first  time  or  two,  but 
after  that,  it  became  rather  pleasant  than  not,  and  when 
he  began  to  see  that  he  was  going  ahead,  he  cared  very 
little  what  people  might  say  about  his  antecedents.  The 
ordeal  is  a  painful  one,  but  if  a  man's  moral  and  intel- 
lectual constitution  is  naturally  sound,  there  is  nothing 
which  will  give  him  so  much  strength  of  character  as 
having  been  well  cut. 

It  was  easy  for  him  to  keep  his  expenditure  down,  for 
his  tastes  were  not  luxurious.  He  liked  theatres,  outings 
into  the  country  on  a  Sunday,  and  tobacco,  but  he  did  not 
care  for  much  else,  except  writing  and  music.  As  for 
the  usual  run  of  concerts,  he  hated  them.  He  wor- 
shipped Handel;  he  liked  Offenbach,  and  the  airs  that 
went  about  the  streets,  but  he  cared  for  nothing  between 
these  two  extremes.  Music,  therefore,  cost  him  little. 
As  for  theatres,  I  got  him  and  Ellen  as  many  orders  as 
they  liked,  so  these  cost  them  nothing.  The  Sunday 
outings  were  a  small  item ;  for  a  shilling  or  two  he  could 
get  a  return  ticket  to  some  place  far  enough  out  of  town 
to  give  him  a  good  walk  and  a  thorough  change  for  the 
day.  Ellen  went  with  him  the  first  few  times,  but  she 
said  she  found  it  too  much  for  her,  there  were  a  few  of 
her  old  friends  whom  she  should  sometimes  like  to  see, 


370         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

and  they  and  he,  she  said,  would  not  hit  it  off  perhaps 
too  well,  so  it  would  be  better  for  him  to  go  alone.  This 
seemed  so  sensible,  and  suited  Ernest  so  exactly  that  he 
readily  fell  into  it,  nor  did  he  suspect  dangers  which 
were  apparent  enough  to  me  when  I  heard  how  she  had 
treated  the  matter.  I  kept  silence,  however,  and  for  a 
time  all  continued  to  go  well.  As  I  have  said,  one  of 
his  chief  pleasures  was  in  writing.  If  a  man  carries  with 
him  a  little  sketch  book  and  is  continually  jotting  down 
sketches,  he  has  the  artistic  instinct;  a  hundred  things 
may  hinder  his  due  development,  but  the  instinct  is  there. 
The  literary  instinct  may  be  known  by  a  man's  keeping 
a  small  note-book  in  his  waistcoat  pocket,  into  which  he 
jots  down  anything  that  strikes  him,  or  any  good  thing 
that  he  hears  said,  or  a  reference  to  any  passage  which 
he  thinks  will  come  in  useful  to  him.  Ernest  had  such 
a  note-book  always  with  him.  Even  when  he  was  at 
Cambridge  he  had  begun  the  practice  without  anyone's 
having  suggested  it  to  him.  These  notes  he  copied  out 
from  time  to  time  into  a  book,  which  as  they  accumu- 
lated, he  was  driven  into  indexing  approximately,  as  he 
went  along.  When  I  found  out  this,  I  knew  that  he  had 
the  literary  instinct,  and  when  I  saw  his  notes  I  began 
to  hope  great  things  of  him. 

For  a  long  time  I  was  disappointed.  He  was  kept  back 
by  the  nature  of  the  subjects  he  chose — which  were 
generally  metaphysical.  In  vain  I  tried  to  get  him  away 
from  these  to  matters  which  had  a  greater  interest  for 
the  general  public.  When  I  begged  him  to  try  his  hand 
at  some  pretty,  graceful,  little  story  which  should  be  full 
of  whatever  people  knew  and  liked  best,  he  would  imme- 
diately set  to  work  upon  a  treatise  to  show  the  grounds 
on  which  all  belief  rested. 

"You  are  stirring  mud,"  said  I,  "or  poking  at  a  sleep- 
ing dog.  You  are  trying  to  make  people  resume  con- 
sciousness about  things,  which,  with  sensible  men,  have 
already  passed  into  the  unconscious  stage.  The  men 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         371 

whom  you  would  disturb  are  in  front  of  you,  and  not,  as 
you  fancy,  behind  you ;  it  is  you  who  are  the  lagger,  not 
they" 

He  could  not  see  it.  He  said  he  was  engaged  on  an 
essay  upon  the  famous  quod  semper,  quod  ubique,  quod 
ab  omnibus  of  St.  Vincent  de  Lerins.  This  was  the 
more  provoking  because  he  showed  himself  able  to  do 
better  things  if  he  had  liked. 

I  was  then  at  work  upon  my  burlesque,  "The  Impatient 
Griselda,"  and  was  sometimes  at  my  wits'  end  for  a  piece 
of  business  or  a  situation ;  he  gave  me  many  suggestions, 
all  of  which  were  marked  by  excellent  good  sense.  Never- 
theless I  could  not  prevail  with  him  to  put  philosophy  on 
one  side,  and  was  obliged  to  leave  him  to  himself. 

For  a  long  time,  as  I  have  said,  his  choice  of  sub- 
jects continued  to  be  such  as  I  could  not  approve.  He 
was  continually  studying  scientific  and  metaphysical  writ- 
ers, in  the  hope  of  either  finding  or  making  for  himself 
a  philosopher's  stone  in  the  shape  of  a  system  which 
should  go  on  all  fours  under  all  circumstances,  instead 
of  being  liable  to  be  upset  at  every  touch  and  turn,  as 
every  system  yet  promulgated  has  turned  out  to  be. 

He  kept  to  the  pursuit  of  this  will-o'-the-wisp  so  long 
that  I  gave  up  hope,  and  set  him  down  as  another  fly 
that  had  been  caught,  as  it  were,  by  a  piece  of  paper 
daubed  over  with  some  sticky  stuff  that  had  not  even  the 
merit  of  being  sweet,  but  to  my  surprise  he  at  last  de- 
clared that  he  was  satisfied,  and  had  found  what  he 
wanted. 

I  supposed  that  he  had  only  hit  upon  some  new  "Lo, 
here!"  when  to  my  relief,  he  told  me  that  he  had  con- 
cluded that  no  system  which  should  go  perfectly  upon 
all  fours  was  possible,  inasmuch  as  no  one  could  get  be- 
hind Bishop  Berkeley,  and  therefore  no  absolutely  in- 
controvertible first  premise  could  ever  be  laid.  Having 
found  this  he  was  just  as  well  pleased  as  if  he  had 
found  the  most  perfect  system  imaginable.  All  he 


372         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

wanted,  he  said,  was  to  know  which  way  it  was  to  be — 
that  is  to  say  whether  a  system  was  possible  or  not,  and 
if  possible  then  what  the  system  was  to  be.  Having 
found  out  that  no  system  based  on  absolute  certainty  was 
possible  he  was  contented. 

I  had  only  a  very  vague  idea  who  Bishop  Berkeley 
was,  but  was  thankful  to  him  for  having  defended  us 
from  an  incontrovertible  first  premise.  I  am  afraid  I 
said  a  few  words  implying  that  after  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  he  had  arrived  at  the  conclusion  which  sensible 
people  reach  without  bothering  their  brains  so  much. 

He  said :  ''Yes,  but  I  was  not  born  sensible.  A  child 
of  ordinary  powers  learns  to  walk  at  a  year  or  two  old 
without  knowing  much  about  it ;  failing  ordinary  pow- 
ers he  had  better  learn  laboriously  than  never  learn  at 
all.  I  am  sorry  I  was  not  stronger,  but  to  do  as  I  did 
was  my  only  chance." 

He  looked  so  meek  that  I  was  vexed  with  myself  for 
having  said  what  I  had,  more  especially  when  I  remem- 
bered his  bringing-up,  which  had  doubtless  done  much 
to  impair  his  power  of  taking  a  common-sense  view  of 
things.  He  continued — 

"I  see  it  all  now.  The  people  like  Towneley  are  the 
only  ones  who  know  anything  that  is  worth  knowing,  and 
like  that  of  course  I  can  never  be.  But  to  make  Towne- 
leys  possible  there  must  be  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water — men  in  fact  through  whom  conscious  knowl- 
edge must  pass  before  it  can  reach  those  who  can  apply 
it  gracefully  and  instinctively  as  the  Towneleys  can.  I 
am  a  hewer  of  wood,  but  if  I  accept  the  position  frankly 
and  do  not  set  up  to  be  a  Towneley,  it  does  not  mat- 
ter." 

He  still,  therefore,  stuck  to  science  instead  of  turning 
to  literature  proper  as  I  hoped  he  would  have  done,  but 
he  confined  himself  henceforth  to  enquiries  on  specific 
subjects  concerning  which  an  increase  of  our  knowledge 
— as  he  said — was  possible.  Having  in  fact,  after  infinite 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         373 

vexation  of  spirit,  arrived  at  a  conclusion  which  cut  at 
the  roots  of  all  knowledge,  he  settled  contentedly  down 
to  the  pursuit  of  knowledge,  and  has  pursued  it  ever 
since  in  spite  of  occasional  excursions  into  the  regions 
of  literature  proper. 

But  this  is  anticipating,  and  may  perhaps  also  convey 
a  wrong  impression,  for  from  the  outset  he  did  occa- 
sionally turn  his  attention  to  work  which  must  be  more 
properly  called  literary  than  either  scientific  or  meta- 
physical. 


CHAPTER   LXXIV 

ABOUT  six  months  after  he  had  set  up  his  shop  his  pros- 
perity had  reached  its  climax.  It  seemed  even  then  as 
though  he  were  likely  to  go  ahead  no  less  fast  than 
heretofore,  and  I  doubt  not  that  he  would  have  done 
so,  if  success  or  non-success  had  depended  upon  himself 
alone.  Unfortunately  he  was  not  the  only  person  to  be 
reckoned  with. 

One  morning  he  had  gone  out  to  attend  some  sales, 
leaving  his  wife  perfectly  well,  as  usual  in  good  spirits, 
and  looking  very  pretty.  When  he  came  back  he  found 
her  sitting  on  a  chair  in  the  back  parlour,  with  her  hair 
over  her  face,  sobbing  and  crying  as  though  her  heart 
would  break.  She  said  she  had  been  frightened  in  the 
morning  by  a  man  who  had  pretended  to  be  a  customer, 
and  had  threatened  her  unless  she  gave  him  some  things, 
and  she  had  had  to  give  them  to  him  in  order  to  save  her- 
self from  violence ;  she  had  been  in  hysterics  ever  since 
the  man  had  gone.  This  was  her  story,  but  her  speech 
was  so  incoherent  that  it  was  not  easy  to  make  out  what 
she  said.  Ernest  knew  she  was  with  child,  and  thinking 
this  might  have  something  to  do  with  the  matter,  would 
have  sent  for  a  doctor  if  Ellen  had  not  begged  him  not 
to  do  so. 


374         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Anyone  who  had  had  experience  of  drunken  people 
would  have  seen  at  a  glance  what  the  matter  was,  but 
my  hero  knew  nothing  about  them — nothing,  that  is  to 
say,  about  the  drunkenness  of  the  habitual  drunkard, 
which  shows  itself  very  differently  from  that  of  one  who 
gets  drunk  only  once  in  a  way.  The  idea  that  his  wife 
could  drink  had  never  even  crossed  his  mind,  indeed  she 
always  made  a  fuss  about  taking  more  than  a  very  little 
beer,  and  never  touched  spirits.  He  did  not  know  much 
more  about  hysterics  than  he  did  about  drunkenness, 
but  he  had  always  heard  that  women  who  were  about  to 
become  mothers  were  liable  to  be  easily  upset  and  were 
often  rather  flighty,  so  he  was  not  greatly  surprised, 
and  thought  he  had  settled  the  matter  by  registering  the 
discovery  that  being  about  to  become  a  father  has  its 
troublesome  as  well  as  its  pleasant  side. 

The  great  change  in  Ellen's  life  consequent  upon  her 
meeting  Ernest  and  getting  married  had  for  a  time 
actually  sobered  her  by  shaking  her  out  of  her  old  ways. 
Drunkenness  is  so  much  a  matter  of  habit,  and  habit  so 
much  a  matter  of  surroundings,  that  if  you  completely 
change  the  surroundings  you  will  sometimes  get  rid  of 
the  drunkenness  altogether.  Ellen  had  intended  remain- 
ing always  sober  henceforward,  and  never  having  had  so 
long  a  steady  fit  before,  believed  she  was  now  cured. 
So  she  perhaps  would  have  been  if  she  had  seen  none 
of  her  old  acquaintances.  When,  however,  her  new  life 
was  beginning  to  lose  its  newness,  and  when  her  old 
acquaintances  came  to  see  her,  her  present  surroundings 
became  more  like  her  past,  and  on  this  she  herself  began 
to  get  like  her  past  too.  At  first  she  only  got  a  little 
tipsy  and  struggled  against  a  relapse ;  but  it  was  no  use, 
she  soon  lost  the  heart  to  fight,  and  now  her  object  was 
not  to  try  to  keep  sober,  but  to  get  gin  without  her  hus- 
band's finding  it  out. 

So  the  hysterics  continued,  and  she  managed  to  make 
her  husband  still  think  that  they  were  due  to  her  being 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         375 

about  to  become  a  mother.  The  worse  her  attacks  were, 
the  more  devoted  he  became  in  his  attention  to  her.  At 
last  he  insisted  that  a  doctor  should  see  her.  The  doctor 
of  course  took  in  the  situation  at  a  glance,  but  said  noth- 
ing to  Ernest  except  in  such  a  guarded  way  that  he  did 
not  understand  the  hints  that  were  thrown  out  to  him. 
He  was  much  too  downright  and  matter-of-fact  to  be 
quick  at  taking  hints  of  this  sort.  He  hoped  that  as  soon 
as  his  wife's  confinement  was  over  she  would  regain 
her  health  and  had  no  thought  save  how  to  spare  her  as 
far  as  possible  till  that  happy  time  should  come. 

In  the  mornings  she  was  generally  better,  as  long  that 
is  to  say  as  Ernest  remained  at  home;  but  he  had  to  go 
out  buying,  and  on  his  return  would  generally  find  that 
she  had  had  another  attack  as  soon  as  he  had  left  the 
house.  At  times  she  would  laugh  and  cry  for  half  an 
hour  together,  at  others  she  would  lie  in  a  semi-comatose 
state  upon  the  bed,  and  when  he  came  back  he  would 
find  that  the  shop  had  been  neglected  and  all  the  work 
of  the  household  left  undone.  Still  he  took  it  for  granted, 
that  this  was  all  part  of  the  usual  course  when  women 
were  going  to  become  mothers,  and  when  Ellen's  share 
of  the  work  settled  down  more  and  more  upon  his  own 
shoulders  he  did  it  all  and  drudged  away  without  a  mur- 
mur. Nevertheless,  he  began  to  feel  in  a  vague  way 
more  as  he  had  felt  in  Ashpit  Place,  at  Roughborough, 
or  at  Battersby,  and  to  lose  the  buoyancy  of  spirits  which 
had  made  another  man  of  him  during  the  first  six  months 
of  his  married  life. 

It  was  not  only  that  he  had  to  do  so  much  household 
work,  for  even  the  cooking,  cleaning  up  slops,  bed- 
making  and  fire-lighting  ere  long  devolved  upon  him,  but 
his  business  no  longer  prospered.  He  could  buy  as  hith- 
erto, but  Ellen  seemed  unable  to  sell  as  she  had  sold 
at  first.  The  fact  was  that  she  sold  as  well  as  ever,  but 
kept  back  part  of  the  proceeds  in  order  to  buy  gin,  and 
she  did  this  more  and  more  till  even  the  unsuspecting 


3?6         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Ernest  ought  to  have  seen  that  she  was  not  telling  the 
truth.  When  she  sold  better — that  is  to  say  when  she 
did  not  think  it  safe  to  keep  back  more  than  a  certain 
amount,  she  got  money  out  of  him  on  the  plea  that  she 
had  a  longing  for  this  or  that,  and  that  it  would  perhaps 
irreparably  damage  the  baby  if  her  longing  was  denied 
her.  All  seemed  right,  reasonable,  and  unavoidable, 
nevertheless  Ernest  saw  that  until  the  confinement  was 
over  he  was  likely  to  have  a  hard  time  of  it.  All,  how- 
ever, would  then  come  right  again. 


CHAPTER   LXXV 

IN  the  month  of  September,  1860,  a  girl  was  born,  and 
Ernest  was  proud  and  happy.  The  birth  of  the  child, 
and  a  rather  alarming  talk  which  the  doctor  had  given  to 
Ellen  sobered  her  for  a  few  weeks,  and  it  really  seemed 
as  though  his  hopes  were  about  to  be  fulfilled.  The 
expenses  of  his  wife's  confinement  were  heavy,  and  he 
was  obliged  to  trench  upon  his  savings,  but  he  had  no 
doubt  about  soon  recouping  this,  now  that  Ellen  was 
herself  again;  for  a  time  indeed  his  business  did  revive 
a  little,  nevertheless  it  seemed  as  though  the  interruption 
to  his  prosperity  had  in  some  way  broken  the  spell  of 
good  luck  which  had  attended  him  in  the  outset ;  he  was 
still  sanguine,  however,  and  worked  night  and  day  with 
a  will,  but  there  was  no  more  music,  or  reading,  or  writ- 
ing now.  His  Sunday  outings  were  put  a  stop  to,  and 
but  for  the  first  floor  being  let  to  myself,  he  would 
have  lost  his  citadel  there  too,  but  he  seldom  used  it,  for 
Ellen  had  to  wait  more  and  more  upon  the  baby,  and, 
as  a  consequence,  Ernest  had  to  wait  more  and  more 
upon  Ellen. 

One  afternoon,  about  a  couple  of  months  after  the 
baby  had  been  born,  and  just  as  my  unhappy  hero  was 
beginning  to  feel  more  hopeful  and  therefore  better  able 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          377 

to  bear  his  burdens,  he  returned  from  a  sale,  and  found 
•    Ellen  in  the  same  hysterical  condition  that  he  had  found 
her  in  in  the  spring.    She  said  she  was  again  with  child, 
and  Ernest  still  believed  her. 

All  the  troubles  of  the  preceding  six  months  began 
again  then  and  there,  and  grew  worse  and  worse  con- 
tinually. Money  did  not  come  in  quickly,  for  Ellen 
cheated  him  by  keeping  it  back,  and  dealing  improperly 
with  the  goods  he  bought.  When  it  did  come  in  she  got 
it  out  of  him  as  before  on  pretexts  which  it  seemed  in- 
human to  inquire  into.  It  was  always  the  same  story. 
By  and  by  a  new  feature  began  to  show  itself.  Ernest 
had  inherited  his  father's  punctuality  and  exactness  as 
regards  money;  he  liked  to  know  the  worst  of  what  he 
had  to  pay  at  once ;  he  hated  having  expenses  sprung 
upon  him  which  if  not  foreseen  might  and  ought  to  have 
been  so,  but  now  bills  began  to  be  brought  to  him  for 
things  ordered  by  Ellen  without  his  knowledge,  or  for 
which  he  had  already  given  her  the  money.  This  was 
awful,  and  even  Ernest  turned.  When  he  remonstrated 
with  her — not  for  having  bought  the  things,  but  for  hav- 
ing said  nothing  to  him  about  the  moneys  being  owing — 
Ellen  met  him  with  hysteria  and  there  was  a  scene.  She 
had  now  pretty  well  forgotten  the  hard  times  she  had 
known  when  she  had  been  on  her  own  resources  and 
reproached  him  downright  with  having  married  her — on 
that  moment  the  scales  fell  from  Ernest's  eyes  as  they 
had  fallen  when  Towneley  had  said,  "No,  no,  no."  He 
said  nothing,  but  he  woke  up  once  for  all  to  the  fact  that 
he  had  made  a  mistake  in  marrying.  A  touch  had  again 
come  which  had  revealed  him  to  himself. 

He  went  upstairs  to  the  disused  citadel,  flung  himself 
into  the  armchair,  and  covered  his  face  with  his  hands, 
He  still  did  not  know  that  his  wife  drank,  but  he  could 
no  longer  trust  her,  and  his  dream  of  happiness  was 
over.  He  had  been  saved  from  the  Church — so  as  by 
fire,  but  still  saved — but  what  could  now  save  him  from 


3?8         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

his  marriage?  He  had  made  the  same  mistake  that  he 
had  made  in  wedding  himself  to  the  Church,  but  with  a 
hundred  times  worse  results.  He  had  learnt  nothing  by 
experience:  he  was  an  Esau — one  of  those  wretches 
whose  hearts  the  Lord  had  hardened,  who,  having  ears, 
heard  not,  having  eyes  saw  not,  and  who  should  find  no 
place  for  repentance  though  they  sought  it  even  with 
tears. 

Yet  had  he  not  on  the  whole  tried  to  find  out  what 
the  ways  of  God  were,  and  to  follow  them  in  singleness 
of  heart?  To  a  certain  extent,  yes;  but  he  had  not  been 
thorough ;  he  had  not  given  up  all  for  God.  He  knew 
that  very  well ;  he  had  done  little  as  compared  with  what 
he  might  and  ought  to  have  done,  but  still  if  he  was 
being  punished  for  this,  God  was  a  hard  taskmaster,  and 
one,  too,  who  was  continually  pouncing  out  upon  his 
unhappy  creatures  from  ambuscades.  In  marrying  Ellen 
he  had  meant  to  avoid  a  life  of  sin,  and  to  take  the 
course  he  believed  to  be  moral  and  right.  With  his 
antecedents  and  surroundings  it  was  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  for  him  to  have  done,  yet  in  what  a 
frightful  position  had  not  his  morality  landed  him. 
Could  any  amount  of  immorality  have  placed  him  in  a 
much  worse  one?  .What  was  morality  worth  if  it  was 
not  that  which  on  the  whole  brought  a  man  peace  at  the 
last,  and  could  anyone  have  reasonable  certainty  that 
marriage  would  do  this?  It  seemed  to  him  that  in  his 
attempt  to  be  moral  he  had  been  following  a  devil  which 
had  disguised  itself  as  an  angel  of  light.  But  if  so,  what 
ground  was  there  on  which  a  man  might  rest  the  sole  of 
his  foot  and  tread  ,in  reasonable  safety  ? 

He  was  still  too  young  to  reach  the  answer,  "On  com- 
mon sense" — an  answer  which  he  would  have  felt  to  be 
unworthy  of  anyone  who  had  an  ideal  standard. 

However  this  might  be,  it  was  plain  that  he  had  now 
done  for  himself.  It  had  been  thus  with  him  all  his  life. 
If  there  had  come  at  any  time  a  gleam  of  sunshine  and 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         379 

hope,  it  was  to  be  obscured  immediately — why,  prison 
was  happier  than  this!  There,  at  any  rate,  he  had  had 
no  money  anxieties,  and  these  were  beginning  to  weigh 
upon  him  now  with  all  their  horrors.  He  was  happier 
even  now  than  he  had  been  at  Battersby  or  at  Rough- 
borough,  and  he  would  not  now  go  back,  even  if  he 
could,  to  his  Cambridge  life,  but  for  all  that  the  out- 
look was  so  gloomy,  in  fact  so  hopeless,  that  he  felt  as 
if  he  could  have  only  too  gladly  gone  to  sleep  and  died 
in  his  armchair  once  for  all. 

As  he  was  musing  thus  and  looking  upon  the  wreck 
of  his  hopes — for  he  saw  well  enough  that  as  long  as 
he  was  linked  to  Ellen  he  should  never  rise  as  he  had 
dreamed  of  doing — he  heard  a  noise  below,  and  pres- 
ently a  neighbour  ran  upstairs  and  entered  his  room 
hurriedly. 

"Good  gracious,  Mr.  Pontifex,"  she  exclaimed,  "for 
goodness'  sake  come  down  quickly  and  help.  Mrs.  Pon- 
tifex is  took  with  the  horrors — and  she's  orkard." 

The  unhappy  man  came  down  as  he  was  bid  and  found 
his  wife  mad  with  delirium  tremens. 

He  knew  all  now.  The  neighbours  thought  he  must 
have  known  that  his  wife  drank  all  along,  but  Ellen 
had  been  so  artful,  and  he  so  simple,  that,  as  I  have  said, 
he  had  had  no  suspicion.  "Why,"  said  the  woman  who 
had  summoned  him,  "she'll  drink  anything  she  can  stand 
up  and  pay  her  money  for."  Ernest  could  hardly  believe 
his  ears,  but  when  the  doctor  had  seen  his  wife  and 
she  had  become  more  quiet,  he  went  over  to  the  public 
house  hard  by  and  made  enquiries,  the  result  of  which 
rendered  further  doubt  impossible.  The  publican  took 
the  opportunity  to  present  my  hero  with  a  bill  of  sev- 
eral pounds  for  bottles  of  spirits  supplied  to  his  wife, 
and  what  with  his  wife's  confinement  and  the  way  busi- 
ness had  fallen  off,  he  had  not  the  money  to  pay  with, 
for  the  sum  exceeded  the  remnant  of  his  savings. 

He  came  to  me — not  for  money,  but  to  tell  me  his 


380         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

miserable  story.  I  had  seen  for  some  time  that  there 
was  something  wrong,  and  had  suspected  pretty  shrewdly 
what  the  matter  was,  but  of  course  I  said  nothing.  Er- 
nest and  I  had  been  growing  apart  for  some  time.  I 
was  vexed  at  his  having  married,  and  he  knew  I  was 
vexed,  though  I  did  my  best  to  hide  it. 

A  man's  friendships  are,  like  his  will,  invalidated  by 
marriage — but  they  are  also  no  less  invalidated  by  the 
marriage  of  his  friends.  The  rift  in  friendship  which 
invariably  makes  its  appearance  on  the  marriage  of  either 
of  the  parties  to  it  was  fast  widening,  as  it  no  less  in- 
variably does,  into  the  great  gulf  which  is  fixed  between 
the  married  and  the  unmarried,  and  I  was  beginning  to 
leave  my  protege  to  a  fate  with  which  I  had  neither  right 
nor  power  to  meddle.  In  fact  I  had  begun  to  feel  him 
rather  a  burden;  I  did  not  so  much  mind  this  when  I 
could  be  of  use,  but  I  grudged  it  when  I  could  be  of 
none.  He  had  made  his  bed  and  he  must  lie  upon  it. 
Ernest  had  felt  all  this  and  had  seldom  come  near  me 
till  now,  one  evening  late  in  1860,  he  called  on  me,  and 
with  a  very  woe-begone  face  told  me  his  troubles.^ 

As  soon  as  I  found  that  he  no  longer  liked  his  wife  I 
forgave  him  at  once,  and  was  as  much  interested  in  him 
as  ever.  There  is  nothing  an  old  bachelor  likes  better 
than  to  find  a  young  married  man  who  wishes  he  had  not 
got  married — especially  when  the  case  is  such  an  ex- 
treme one  that  he  need  not  pretend  to  hope  that  matters 
will  come  all  right  again,  or  encourage  his  young  friend 
to  make  the  best  of  it. 

I  was  myself  in  favour  of  a  separation,  and  said  I 
would  make  Ellen  an  allowance  myself — of  course  in- 
tending that  it  should  come  out  of  Ernest's  money;  but 
he  would  not  hear  of  this.  He  had  married  Ellen,  he 
said,  and  he  must  try  to  reform  her.  He  hated  it,  but 
he  must  try ;  and  finding  him  as  usual  very  obstinate  I 
was  obliged  to  acquiesce,  though  with  little  confidence  as 
to  the  result.  I  was  vexed  at  seeing  him  waste  himself 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         381 

upon  such  a  barren  task,  and  again  began  to  feel  him 
burdensome.  I  am  afraid  I  showed  this,  for  he  again 
avoided  me  for  some  time,  and,  indeed,  for  many  months 
I  hardly  saw  him  at  all. 

Ellen  remained  very  ill  for  some  days,  and  then  grad- 
ually recovered.  Ernest  hardly  left  her  till  she  was  out 
of  danger.  When  she  had  recovered  he  got  the  doctor 
to  tell  her  that  if  she  had  such  another  attack  she  would 
certainly  die;  this  so  frightened  her  that  she  took  the 
pledge. 

Then  he  became  more  hopeful  again.  When  she  was 
sober  she  was  just  what  she  was  during  the  first  days  of 
her  married  life,  and  so  quick  was  he  to  forget  pain, 
that  after  a  few  days  he  was  as  fond  of  her  as  ever. 
But  Ellen  could  not  forgive  him  for  knowing  what  he 
did.  She  knew  that  he  was  on  the  watch  to  shield  her 
from  temptation,  and  though  he  did  his  best  to  make  her 
think  that  he  had  no  further  uneasiness  about  her,  she 
found  the  burden  of  her  union  with  respectability  grow 
more  and  more  heavy  upon  her,  and  looked  back  more 
and  more  longingly  upon  the  lawless  freedom  of  the  life 
she  had  led  before  she  met  her  husband. 

I  will  dwell  no  longer  on  this  part  of  my  story.  Dur- 
ing the  spring  months  of  1861  she  kept  straight — she 
had  had  her  fling  of  dissipation,  and  this,  together  with 
the  impression  made  upon  her  by  her  having  taken  the 
pledge,  tamed  her  for  a  while.  The  shop  went  fairly 
well,  and  enabled  Ernest  to  make  the  two  ends  meet.  In 
the  spring  and  summer  of  1861  he  even  put  by  a  little 
money  again.  In  the  autumn  his  wife  was  confined  of 
a  boy — a  very  fine  one,  so  everyone  said.  She  soon  re- 
covered, and  Ernest  was  beginning  to  breathe  freely 
and  be  almost  sanguine  when,  without  a  word  of  warn- 
ing, the  storm  broke  again.  He  returned  one  afternoon 
about  two  years  after  his  marriage,  and  found  his  wife 
lying  upon  the  floor  insensible. 

From  this   time  he   became   hopeless,   and  began   to 


382         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

go  visibly  down  hill.  He  had  been  knocked  about  too 
much,  and  the  luck  had  gone  too  long  against  him.  The 
wear  and  tear  of  the  last  three  years  had  told  on  him, 
and  though  not  actually  ill  he  was  overworked,  below 
par,  and  unfit  for  any  further  burden. 

He  struggled  for  a  while  to  prevent  himself  from  find- 
ing this  out,  but  facts  were  too  strong  for  him.  Again 
he  called  on  me  and  told  me  what  had  happened.  I  was 
glad  the  crisis  had  come;  I  was  sorry  for  Ellen,  but  a 
complete  separation  from  her  was  the  only  chance  for 
her  husband.  Even  after  this  last  outbreak  he  was  un- 
willing to  consent  to  this,  and  talked  nonsense  about 
dying  at  his  post,  till  I  got  tired  of  him.  Each  time  I 
saw  him  the  old  gloom  had  settled  more  and  more  deeply 
upon  his  face,  and  I  had  about  made  up  my  mind  to  put 
an  end  to  the  situation  by  a  coup  de  main,  such  as  brib- 
ing Ellen  to  run  away  with  somebody  else,  or  some- 
thing of  that  kind,  when  matters  settled  themselves  as 
usual  in  a  way  which  I  had  not  anticipated. 


CHAPTER   LXXVI 

THE  winter  had  been  a  trying  one.  Ernest  had  only  paid 
his  way  by  selling  his  piano.  With  this  he  seemed  to 
cut  away  the  last  link  that  connected  him  with  his 
earlier  life,  and  to  sink  once  for  all  into  the  small  shop- 
keeper. It  seemed  to  him  that  however  low  he  might 
sink  his  pain  could  not  last  much  longer,  for  he  should 
simply  die  if  it  did. 

He  hated  Ellen  now,  and  the  pair  lived  in  open  want 
of  harmony  with  each  other.  If  it  had  not  been  for 
his  children,  he  would  have  left  her  and  gone  to  Amer- 
ica, but  he  could  not  leave  the  children  with  Ellen,  and 
as  for  taking  them  with  him  he  did  not  know  how  to 
do  it,  nor  what  to  do  with  them  when  he  had  got  them 
to  America.  If  he  had  not  lost  energy  he  would  prob- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         383 

ably  in  the  end  have  taken  the  children  and  gone  off, 
but  his  nerve  was  shaken,  so  day  after  day  went  by 
and  nothing  was  done. 

He  had  only  got  a  few  shillings  in  the  world  now, 
except  the  value  of  his  stock,  which  was  very  little;  he 
could  get  perhaps  £3  or  £4  by  selling  his  music  and  what 
few  pictures  and  pieces  of  furniture  still  belonged  to 
him.  He  thought  of  trying  to  live  by  his  pen,  but  his 
writing  had  dropped  off  long  ago;  he  no  longer  had 
an  idea  in  his  head.  Look  which  way  he  would  he  saw 
no  hope ;  the  end,  if  it  had  not  actually  come,  was  within 
easy  distance,  and  he  was  almost  face  to  face  with  actual 
want.  When  he  saw  people  going  about  poorly  clad,  or 
even  without  shoes  and  stockings,  he  wondered  whether 
within  a  few  months'  time  he  too  should  not  have  to  go 
about  in  this  way.  The  remorseless,  resistless  hand  of 
fate  had  caught  him  in  its  grip  and  was  dragging  him 
down,  down,  down.  Still  he  staggered  on,  going  his 
daily  rounds,  buying  second-hand  clothes,  and  spending 
his  evenings  in  cleaning  and  mending  them. 

One  morning,  as  he  was  returning  from  a  house  at 
the  West  End  where  he  had  bought  some  clothes  from 
one  of  the  servants,  he  was  struck  by  a  small  crowd 
which  had  gathered  round  a  space  that  had  been  railed 
off  on  the  grass  near  one  of  the  paths  in  the  Green 
Park. 

It  was  a  lovely  soft  spring  morning  at  the  end  of 
March,  and  unusually  balmy  for  the  time  of  year;  even 
Ernest's  melancholy  was  relieved  for  a  while  by  the  look 
of  spring  that  pervaded  earth  and  sky;  but  it  soon  re- 
turned, and  smiling  sadly  he  said  to  himself:  "It  may 
bring  hope  to  others,  but  for  me  there  can  be  no  hope 
henceforth." 

As  these  words  were  in  his  mind  he  joined  the  small 
crowd  who  were  gathered  round  the  railings,  and  saw 
that  they  were  looking  at  three  sheep  with  very  small 
lambs  only  a  day  or  two  old,  which  had  been  penned 


384         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

off  for  shelter  and  protection  from  the  others  that  ranged 
the  park. 

They  were  very  pretty,  and  Londoners  so  seldom 
get  a  chance  of  seeing  lambs  that  it  was  no  wonder 
every  one  stopped  to  look  at  them.  Ernest  observed 
that  no  one  seemed  fonder  of  them  than  a  great  lub- 
berly butcher  boy,  who  leaned  up  against  the  railings 
with  a  tray  of  meat  upon  his  shoulder.  He  was  looking 
at  this  boy  and  smiling  at  the  grotesqueness  of  his  ad- 
miration, when  he  became  aware  that  he  was  being 
watched  intently  by  a  man  in  coachman's  livery,  who 
had  also  stopped  to  admire  the  lambs,  and  was  leaning 
against  the  opposite  side  of  the  enclosure.  Ernest  knew 
him  in  a  moment  as  John,  his  father's  old  coachman  at 
Battersby,  and  went  up  to  him  at  once. 

"Why,  Master  Ernest,"  said  he,  with  his  strong  north- 
ern accent,  "I  was  thinking  of  you  only  this  very  morn- 
ing," and  the  pair  shook  hands  heartily.  John  was  in 
an  excellent  place  at  the  West  End.  He  had  done  very 
well,  he  said,  ever  since  he  had  left  Battersby,  except 
for  the  first  year  or  two,  and  that,  he  said,  with  a  screw 
of  the  face,  had  well  nigh  broke  him. 

Ernest  asked  how  this  was. 

"Why,  you  see,"  said  John,  "I  was  always  main  fond 
of  that  lass  Ellen,  whom  you  remember  running  after, 
Master  Ernest,  and  giving  your  watch  to.  I  expect  you 
haven't  forgotten  that  day,  have  you?"  And  here  he 
laughed.  "I  don't  know  as  I  be  the  father  of  the  child 
she  carried  away  with  her  from  Battersby,  but  I  very 
easily  may  have  been.  Anyhow,  after  I  had  left  your 
papa's  place  a  few  days  I  wrote  to  Ellen  to  an  address 
we  had  agreed  upon,  and  told  her  I  would  do  what  I 
ought  to  do,  and  so  I  did,  for  I  married  her  within  a 
month  afterwards.  Why,  Lord  love  the  man,  what- 
ever is  the  matter  with  him?" — for  as  he  had  spoken  the 
last  few  words  of  his  story  Ernest  had  turned  white 
as  a  sheet,  and  was  leaning  against  the  railings. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         385 

"John,"  said  my  hero,  gasping  for  breath,  "are  you 
sure  of  what  you  say — are  you  quite  sure  you  really  mar- 
ried her?" 

"Of  course  I  am,"  said  John ;  "I  married  her  before 
the  registrar  at  Letchbury  on  the  I5th  of  August,  1851." 

"Give  me  your  arm,"  said  Ernest,  "and  take  me  into 
Piccadilly,  and  put  me  into  a  cab,  and  come  with  me  at 
once,  if  you  can  spare  time,  to  Mr.  Overton's  at  the 
Temple." 


CHAPTER   LXXVII 

I  DO  not  think  Ernest  himself  was  much  more  pleased 
at  finding  that  he  had  never  been  married  than  I  was. 
To  him,  however,  the  shock  of  pleasure  was  positively 
numbing  in  its  intensity.  As  he  felt  his  burden  removed, 
he  reeled  for  the  unaccustomed  lightness  of  his  move- 
ments; his  position  was  so  shattered  that  his  identity 
seemed  to  have  been  shattered  also ;  he  was  as  one  wak- 
ing up  from  a  horrible  nightmare  to  find  himself  safe 
and  sound  in  bed,  but  who  can  hardly  even  yet  believe 
that  the  room  is  not  full  of  armed  men  who  are  about 
to  spring  upon  him. 

"And  it  is  I,"  he  said,  "who  not  an  hour  ago  com- 
plained that  I  was  without  hope.  It  is  I,  who  for  weeks 
have  been  railing  at  fortune,  and  saying  that  though 
she  smiled  on  others  she  never  smiled  at  me.  Why, 
never  was  anyone  half  so  fortunate  as  I  am." 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "you  have  been  inoculated  for  mar- 
riage, and  have  recovered." 

"And  yet,"  he  said,  "I  was  very  fond  of  her  till  she 
took  to  drinking." 

"Perhaps ;  but  is  it  not  Tennyson  who  has  said : 
'  'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost,  than  never  to  have 
loved  at  all'?" 

"You  are  an  inveterate  bachelor,"  was  the  rejoinder. 


386         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Then  we  had  a  long  talk  with  John,  to  whom  I  gave 
a  £5  note  upon  the  spot.  He  said,  "Ellen  had  used  to 
drink  at  Battersby;  the  cook  had  taught  her;  he  had 
known  it,  but  was  so  fond  of  her,  that  he  had  chanced 
it  and  married  her  to  save  her  from  the  streets  and  in 
the  hope  of  being  able  to  keep  her  straight.  She  had 
done  with  him  just  as  she  had  done  with  Ernest — made 
him  an  excellent  wife  as  long  as  she  kept  sober,  but  a 
very  bad  one  afterwards." 

"There  isn't,"  said  John,  "a  sweeter-tempered,  handier, 
prettier  girl  than  she  was  in  all  England,  nor  one  as 
knows  better  what  a  man  likes,  and  how  to  make  him 
happy,  if  you  can  keep  her  from  drink;  but  you  can't 
keep  her;  she's  that  artful  she'll  get  it  under  your  very 
eyes,  without  you  knowing  it.  If  she  can't  get  any  more 
of  your  things  to  pawn  or  sell,  she'll  steal  her  neigh- 
bours'. That's  how  she  got  into  trouble  first  when  I 
was  with  her.  During  the  six  months  she  was  in  prison 
I  should  have  felt  happy  if  I  had  not  known  she  would 
come  out  again.  And  then  she  did  come  out,  and  be- 
fore she  had  been  free  a  fortnight,  she  began  shop-lifting 
and  going  on  the  loose  again — and  all  to  get  money  to 
drink  with.  So  seeing  I  could  do  nothing  with  her 
and  that  she  was  just  a-killing  of  me,  I  left  her,  and 
came  up  to  London,  and  went  into  service  again,  and  I 
did  not  know  what  had  become  of  her  till  you  and  Mr. 
Ernest  here  told  me.  I  hope  you'll  neither  of  you  say 
you've  seen  me." 

We  assured  him  we  would  keep  his  counsel,  and  then 
he  left  us,  with  many  protestations  of  affection  towards 
Ernest,  to  whom  he  had  been  always  much  attached. 

We  talked  the  situation  over,  and  decided  first  to 
get  the  children  away,  and  then  to  come  to  terms  with 
Ellen  concerning  their  future  custody;  as  for  herself, 
I  proposed  that  we  should  make  her  an  allowance  of, 
say,  a  pound  a  week  to  be  paid  so  long  as  she  gave  no 
trouble.  Ernest  did  not  see  where  the  pound  a  week 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         387 

was  to  come  from,  so  I  eased  his  mind  by  saying  I  would 
pay  it  myself.  Before  the  day  was  two  hours  older  we 
had  got  the  children,  about  whom  Ellen  had  always  ap- 
peared to  be  indifferent,  and  had  confided  them  to  the 
care  of  my  laundress,  a  good  motherly  sort  of  woman, 
who  took  to  them  and  to  whom  they  took  at  once. 

Then  came  the  odious  task  of  getting  rid  of  their  un- 
happy mother.  Ernest's  heart  smote  him  at  the  notion 
of  the  shock  the  break-up  would  be  to  her.  He  was  al- 
ways thinking  that  people  had  a  claim  upon  him  for  some 
inestimable  service  they  had  rendered  him,  or  for  some 
irreparable  mischief  done  to  them  by  himself;  the  case 
however  was  so  clear,  that  Ernest's  scruples  did  not 
offer  serious  resistance. 

I  did  not  see  why  he  should  have  the  pain  of  an- 
other interview  with  his  wife,  so  I  got  Mr.  Ottery  to 
manage  the  whole  business.  It  turned  out  that  we  need 
not  have  harrowed  ourselves  so  much  about  the  agony 
of  mind  which  Ellen  would  suffer  on  becoming  an  out- 
cast again.  Ernest  saw  Mrs.  Richards,  the  neighbour 
who  had  called  him  down  on  the  night  when  he  had  first 
discovered  his  wife's  drunkenness,  and  got  from  her 
some  details  of  Ellen's  opinions  upon  the  matter.  She 
did  not  seem  in  the  least  conscience-stricken;  she  said: 
"Thank  goodness,  at  last !"  And  although  aware  that 
her  marriage  was  not  a  valid  one,  evidently  regarded 
this  as  a  mere  detail  which  it  would  not  be  worth  any- 
body's while  to  go  into  more  particularly.  As  regards 
his  breaking  with  her,  she  said  it  was  a  good  job  both  for 
him  and  for  her. 

"This  life,"  she  continued,  "don't  suit  me.  Ernest  is 
too  good  for  me;  he  wants  a  woman  as  shall  be  a  bit 
better  than  me,  and  I  want  a  man  that  shall  be  a  bit 
worse  than  him.  We  should  have  got  on  all  very  well 
if  we  had  not  lived  together  as  married  folks,  but  I've 
been  used  to  have  a  little  place  of  my  own,  however 
small,  for  a  many  years,  and  I  don't  want  Ernest,  or 


388         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

any  other  man,  always  hanging  about  it.  Besides,  he  is 
too  steady:  his  being  in  prison  hasn't  done  him  a  bit 
of  good — he's  just  as  grave  as  those  as  have  never  been 
in  prison  at  all,  and  he  never  swears  nor  curses,  come 
what  may;  it  makes  me  afeared  of  him,  and  therefore 
I  drink  the  worse.  What  us  poor  girls  wants  is  not  to 
be  jumped  up  all  of  a  sudden  and  made  honest  women 
of ;  this  is  too  much  for  us  and  throws  us  off  our  perch ; 
what  we  wants  is  a  regular  friend  or  two,  who'll  just 
keep  us  from  starving,  and  force  us  to  be  good  for  a 
bit  together  now  and  again.  That's  about  as  much  as 
we  can  stand.  He  may  have  the  children;  he  can  do 
better  for  them  than  I  can;  and  as  for  his  money,  he 
may  give  it  or  keep  it  as  he  likes;  he's  never  done  me 
any  harm,  and  I  shall  let  him  alone ;  but  if  he  means  me 
to  have  it,  I  suppose  I'd  better  have  it." — And  have  it 
she  did. 

"And  I,"  thought  Ernest  to  himself  again  when  the 
arrangement  was  concluded,  "am  the  man  who  thought 
himself  unlucky!" 

I  may  as  well  say  here  all  that  need  be  said  further 
about  Ellen.  For  the  next  three  years  she  used  to  call 
regularly  at  Mr.  Ottery's  every  Monday  morning  for  her 
pound.  She  was  always  neatly  dressed,  and  looked  so 
quiet  and  pretty  that  no  one  would  have  suspected  her 
antecedents.  At  first  she  wanted  sometimes  to  antici- 
pate, but  after  three  or  four  ineffectual  attempts — on 
each  of  which  occasions  she  told  a  most  pitiful  story — 
she  gave  it  up  and  took  her  money  regularly  without 
a  word.  Once  she  came  with  a  bad  black  eye,  "which  a 
boy  had  throwed  a  stone  and  hit  her  by  mistake" ;  but 
on  the  whole  she  looked  pretty  much  the  same  at  the 
end  of  the  three  years  as  she  had  done  at  the  beginning. 
Then  she  explained  that  she  was  going  to  be  married 
again.  Mr.  Ottery  saw  her  on  this,  and  pointed  out 
to  her  that  she  would  very  likely  be  again  committing 
bigamy  by  doing  so.  "You  may  call  it  what  you  like," 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         389 

she  replied,  "but  I  am  going  off  to  America  with  Bill 
the  butcher's  man,  and  we  hope  Mr.  Pontifex  won't  be 
too  hard  on  us  and  stop  the  allowance."  Ernest  was 
little  likely  to  do  this,  so  the  pair  went  in  peace.  I  be- 
lieve it  was  Bill  who  had  blacked  her  eye,  and  she  liked 
him  all  the  better  for  it. 

From  one  or  two  little  things  I  have  been  able  to 
gather  that  the  couple  got  on  very  well  together,  and 
that  in  Bill  she  has  found  a  partner  better  suited  to  her 
than  either  John  or  Ernest.  On  his  birthday  Ernest 
generally  receives  an  envelope  with  an  American  post- 
mark containing  a  book-marker  with  a  flaunting  text 
upon  it,  or  a  moral  kettle-holder,  or  some  other  similar 
small  token  of  recognition,  but  no  letter.  Of  the  chil- 
dren she  has  taken  no  notice. 


CHAPTER   LXXVIII 

ERNEST  was  now  well  turned  twenty-six  years  old,  and  in 
little  more  than  another  year  and  a  half  would  come  into 
possession  of  his  money.  I  saw  no  reason  for  letting 
him  have  it  earlier  than  the  date  fixed  by  Miss  Pontifex 
herself ;  at  the  same  time  I  did  not  like  his  continuing 
the  shop  at  Blackfriars  after  the  present  crisis.  It  was 
not  till  now  that  I  fully  understood  how  much  he  had 
suffered,  nor  how  nearly  his  supposed  wife's  habits  had 
brought  him  to  actual  want. 

I  had  indeed  noted  the  old,  wan,  worn  look  settling 
upon  his  face,  but  was  either  too  indolent  or  too  hope- 
less of  being  able  to  sustain  a  protracted  and  successful 
warfare  with  Ellen  to  extend  the  sympathy  and  make 
the  inquiries  which  I  suppose  I  ought  to  have  made. 
And  yet  I  hardly  know  what  I  could  have  done,  for 
nothing  short  of  his  finding  out  what  he  had  found  out 
would  have  detached  him  from  his  wife,  and  nothing 


39O         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

could  do  him  much  good  as  long  as  he  continued  to  live 
with  her. 

After  all  I  suppose  I  was  right;  I  suppose  things  did 
turn  out  all  the  better  in  the  end  for  having  been  left  to 
settle  themselves — at  any  rate  whether  they  did  or  did 
not,  the  whole  thing  was  in  too  great  a  muddle  for  me 
to  venture  to  tackle  it  so  long  as  Ellen  was  upon  the 
scene;  now,  however,  that  she  was  removed,  all  my  in- 
terest in  my  godson  revived,  and  I  turned  over  many 
times  in  my  mind  what  I  had  better  do  with  him. 

It  was  now  three  and  a  half  years  since  he  had  come 
up  to  London  and  begun  to  live,  so  to  speak,  upon  his 
own  account.  Of  these  years,  six  months  had  been  spent 
as  a  clergyman,  six  months  in  gaol,  and  for  two  and  a 
half  years  he  had  been  acquiring  twofold  experience 
in  the  ways  of  business  and  of  marriage.  He  had  failed, 
I  may  say,  in  everything  that  he  had  undertaken,  even 
as  a  prisoner;  yet  his  defeats  had  been  always,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  something  so  like  victories,  that  I  was  sat- 
isfied of  his  being  worth  all  the  pains  I  could  bestow 
upon  him;  my  only  fear  was  lest  I  should  meddle  with 
him  when  it  might  be  better  for  him  to  be  let  alone. 
On  the  whole  I  concluded  that  a  three  and  a  half  years' 
apprenticeship  to  a  rough  life  was  enough;  the  shop 
had  done  much  for  him ;  it  had  kept  him  going  after 
a  fashion,  when  he  was  in  great  need;  it  had  thrown 
him  upon  his  own  resources,  and  taught  him  to  see 
profitable  openings  all  around  him,  where  a  few  months 
before  he  would  have  seen  nothing  but  insuperable  diffi- 
culties; it  had  enlarged  his  sympathies  by  making  him 
understand  the  lower  classes,  and  not  confining  his  view 
of  life  to  that  taken  by  gentlemen  only.  When  he  went 
about  the  streets  and  saw  the  books  outside  the  sec- 
ond-hand book-stalls,  the  bric-a-brac  in  the  curiosity 
shops,  and  the  infinite  commercial  activity  which  is  omni- 
present around  us,  he  understood  it  and  sympathised 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         391 

with  it  as  he  could  never  have  done  if  he  had  not  kept 
a  shop  himself. 

He  has  often  told  me  that  when  he  used  to  travel  on 
a  railway  that  overlooked  populous  suburbs,  and  looked 
down  upon  street  after  street  of  dingy  houses,  he  used 
to  wonder  what  kind  of  people  lived  in  them,  what  they 
did  and  felt,  and  how  far  it  was  like  what  he  did  and 
felt  himself.  Now,  he  said,  he  knew  all  about  it.  I  am 
not  very  familiar  with  the  writer  of  the  Odyssey  (who, 
by  the  way,  I  suspect  strongly  of  having  been  a  clergy- 
man), but  he  assuredly  hit  the  right  nail  on  the  head 
when  he  epitomised  his  typical  wise  man  as  knowing  "the 
ways  and  farings  of  many  men."  What  culture  is  com- 
parable to  this?  What  a  lie,  what  a  sickly,  debilitating 
debauch  did  not  Ernest's  school  and  university  career 
now  seem  to  him,  in  comparison  with  his  life  in  prison 
and  as  a  tailor  in  Blackfriars.  I  have  heard  him  say 
he  would  have  gone  through  all  he  had  suffered  if  it 
were  only  for  the  deeper  insight  it  gave  him  into  the 
spirit  of  the  Grecian  and  the  Surrey  pantomimes.  What 
confidence  again  in  his  own  power  to  swim  if  thrown 
into  deep  waters  had  not  he  won  through  his  experi- 
ences during  the  last  three  years! 

But,  as  I  have  said,  I  thought  my  godson  had  now 
seen  as  much  of  the  under  currents  of  life  as  was  likely 
to  be  of  use  to  him,  and  that  it  was  time  he  began  to 
live  in  a  style  more  suitable  to  his  prospects.  His  aunt 
had  wished  him  to  kiss  the  soil,  and  he  had  kissed  it  with 
a  vengeance;  but  I  did  not  like  the  notion  of  his  coming 
suddenly  from  the  position  of  a  small  shopkeeper  to 
that  of  a  man  with  an  income  of  between  three  and 
four  thousand  a  year.  Too  sudden  a  jump  from  bad 
fortune  to  good  is  just  as  dangerous  as  one  from  good 
to  bad ;  besides,  poverty  is  very  wearing ;  it  is  a  quasi- 
embryonic  condition,  through  which  a  man  had  better 
pass  if  he  is  to  hold  his  later  developments  securely,  but 


392         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

like  measles  or  scarlet  fever  he  had  better  have  it  mildly 
and  get  it  over  early. 

No  man  is  safe  from  losing  every  penny  he  has  in 
the  world,  unless  he  has  had  his  facer.  How  often 
do  I  not  hear  middle-aged  women  and  quiet  family 
men  say  that  they  have  no  speculative  tendency;  they 
never  had  touched,  and  never  would  touch,  any  but  the 
very  soundest,  best  reputed  investments,  and  as  for  un- 
limited liability,  oh,  dear !  dear !  and  they  throw  up  their 
hands  and  eyes. 

Whenever  a  person  is  heard  to  talk  thus  he  may  be 
recognised  as  the  easy  prey  of  the  first  adventurer  who 
comes  across  him;  he  will  commonly,  indeed,  wind  up 
his  discourse  by  saying  that  in  spite  of  all  his  natural 
caution,  and  his  well  knowing  how  foolish  speculation  is, 
yet  there  are  some  investments  which  are  called  specu- 
lative but  in  reality  are  not  so,  and  he  will  pull  out  of 
his  pocket  the  prospectus  of  a  Cornish  gold  mine.  It 
is  only  on  having  actually  lost  money  that  one  realises 
what  an  awful  thing  the  loss  of  it  is,  and  finds  out  how 
easily  it  is  lost  by  those  who  venture  out  of  the  middle 
of  the  most  beaten  path.  Ernest  had  had  his  facer, 
as  he  had  had  his  attack  of  poverty,  young,  and  suf- 
ficiently badly  for  a  sensible  man  to  be  little  likely  to 
forget  it.  I  can  fancy  few  pieces  of  good  fortune  greater 
than  this  as  happening  to  any  man,  provided,  of  course, 
that  he  is  not  damaged  irretrievably. 

So  strongly  do  I  feel  on  this  subject  that  if  I  had  my 
way  I  would  have  a  speculation  master  attached  to  every 
school.  The  boys  would  be  encouraged  to  read  the 
Money  Market  Review,  the  Railway  News,  and  all  the 
best  financial  papers,  and  should  establish  a  stock  ex- 
change amongst  themselves  in  which  pence  should  stand 
as  pounds.  Then  let  them  see  how  this  making  haste 
to  get  rich  moneys  out  in  actual  practice.  There  might 
be  a  prize  awarded  by  the  head-master  to  the  most  pru- 
dent dealer,  and  the  boys  who  lost  their  money  time 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         393 

after  time  should  be  dismissed.  Of  course  if  any  boy 
proved  to  have  a  genius  for  speculation  and  made  money 
— well  and  good,  let  him  speculate  by  all  means. 

If  Universities  were  not  the  worst  teachers  in  the 
world  I  should  like  to  see  professorships  of  speculation 
established  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  When  I  reflect, 
however,  that  the  only  things  worth  doing  which  Ox- 
ford and  Cambridge  can  do  well  are  cooking,  cricket, 
rowing  and  games,  of  which  there  is  no  professorship, 
I  fear  that  the  establishment  of  a  professorial  chair 
would  end  in  teaching  young  men  neither  how  to  specu- 
late, nor  how  not  to  speculate,  but  would  simply  turn 
them  out  as  bad  speculators. 

I  heard  of  one  case  in  which  a  father  actually  carried 
my  idea  into  practice.  He  wanted  his  son  to  learn  how 
little  confidence  was  to  be  placed  in  glowing  prospec- 
tuses and  flaming  articles,  and  found  him  five  hundred 
pounds  which  he  was  to  invest  according  to  his  lights. 
The  father  expected  he  would  lose  the  money;  but  it 
did  not  turn  out  so  in  practice,  for  the  boy  took  so  much 
pains  and  played  so  cautiously  that  the  money  kept 
growing  and  growing  till  the  father  took  it  away  again, 
increment  and  all — as  he  was  pleased  to  say,  in  self 
defence. 

I  had  made  my  own  mistakes  with  money  about  the 
year  1846,  when  everyone  else  was  making  them.  For 
a  few  years  I  had  been  so  scared  and  had  suffered 
so  severely,  that  when  (owing  to  the  good  advice  of  the 
broker  who  had  advised  my  father  and  grandfather  be- 
fore me)  I  came  out  in  the  end  a  winner  and  not  a  loser, 
I  played  no  more  pranks,  but  kept  henceforward  as 
nearly  in  the  middle  of  the  middle  rut  as  I  could.  I 
tried  in  fact  to  keep  my  money  rather  than  to  make 
more  of  it.  I  had  done  with  Ernest's  money  as  with  my 
own — that  is  to  say  I  had  let  it  alone  after  investing 
it  in  Midland  ordinary  stock  according  to  Miss  Ponti- 
fex's  instructions.  No  amount  of  trouble  would  have 


394         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

been  likely  to  have  increased  my  godson's  estate  one 
half  so  much  as  it  had  increased  without  my  taking  any 
trouble  at  all. 

Midland  stock  at  the  end  of  August  1850,  when  I  sold 
out  Miss  Pontifex's  debentures,  stood  at  £32  per  £100. 
I  invested  the  whole  of  Ernest's  £15,000  at  this  price, 
and  did  not  change  the  investment  till  a  few  months 
before  the  time  of  which  I  have  been  writing  lately — 
that  is  to  say  until  September,  1861.  I  then  sold  at  £129 
per  share  and  invested  in  London  and  North-Western 
ordinary  stock,  which  I  was  advised  was  more  likely  to 
rise  than  Midlands  now  were.  I  bought  the  London 
and  North-Western  stock  at  £93  per  £  100,  and  my  god- 
son now  in  1882  still  holds  it. 

The  original  £15,000  had  increased  in  eleven  years  to 
over  £60,000 ;  the  accumulated  interest,  which,  of  course, 
I  had  re-invested,  had  come  to  about  £10,000  more,  so 
that  Ernest  was  then  worth  over  £70,000.  At  present  he 
is  worth  nearly  double  that  sum,  and  all  as  the  result 
of  leaving  well  alone. 

Large  as  his  property  now  was,  it  ought  to  be  increased 
still  further  during  the  year  and  a  half  that  remained 
of  his  minority,  so  that  on  coming  of  age  he  ought  to 
have  an  income  of  at  least  £3500  a  year. 

I  wished  him  to  understand  bookkeeping  by  double 
entry.  I  had  myself  as  a  young  man  been  compelled  to 
master  this  not  very  difficult  art;  having  acquired  it,  I 
have  become  enamoured  of  it,  and  consider  it  the  most 
necessary  branch  of  any  young  man's  education  after 
reading  and  writing.  I  was  determined,  therefore,  that 
Ernest  should  master  it,  and  proposed  that  he  should 
become  my  steward,  bookkeeper,  and  the  manager  of 
my  hoardings,  for  so  I  called  the  sum  which  my  ledger 
showed  to  have  accumulated  from  £15,000  to  £70,000. 
I  told  him  I  was  going  to  begin  to  spend  the  income 
as  soon  as  it  had  amounted  up  to  £80,000. 

A  few  days  after  Ernest's  discovery  that  he  was  still 


a  bachelor,  while  he  was  still  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  honeymoon,  as  it  were,  of  his  renewed  unmarried 
life,  I  broached  my  scheme,  desired  him  to  give  up  his 
shop,  and  offered  him  £300  a  year  for  managing  (so  far 
indeed  as  it  required  any  managing)  his  own  property. 
This  £300  a  year,  I  need  hardly  say,  I  made  him  charge 
to  the  estate. 

If  anything  had  been  wanting  to  complete  his  happi- 
ness it  was  this.  Here,  within  three  or  four  days  he 
found  himself  freed  from  one  of  the  most  hideous,  hope- 
less liaisons  imaginable,  and  at  the  same  time  raised  from 
a  life  of  almost  squalor  to  the  enjoyment  of  what  would 
to  him  be  a  handsome  income. 

"A  pound  a  week,"  he  thought,  "for  Ellen,  and  the 
rest  for  myself." 

"No,"  said  I,  "we  will  charge  Ellen's  pound  a  week 
to  the  estate  also.  You  must  have  a  clear  £300  for  your- 
self." 

I  fixed  upon  this  sum,  because  it  was  the  one  which 
Mr.  Disraeli  gave  Coningsby  when  Coningsby  was  at  the 
lowest  ebb  of  his  fortunes.  Mr.  Disraeli  evidently 
thought  £300  a  year  the  smallest  sum  on  which  Coningsby 
could  be  expected  to  live,  and  make  the  two  ends  meet; 
with  this,  however,  he  thought  his  hero  could  manage 
to  get  along  for  a  year  or  two.  In  1862,  of  which  I  am 
now  writing,  prices  had  risen,  though  not  so  much  as 
they  have  since  done;  on  the  other  hand  Ernest  had 
had  less  expensive  antecedents  than  Coningsby,  so  on 
the  whole  I  thought  £300  a  year  would  be  about  the  right 
thing  for  him. 


CHAPTER   LXXIX 

THE  question  now  arose  what  was  to  be  done  with  the 
children.  I  explained  to  Ernest  that  their  expenses 
must  be  charged  to  the  estate,  and  showed  him  how  small 


396         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

a  hole  all  the  various  items  I  proposed  to  charge  would 
make  in  the  income  at  my  disposal.  He  was  beginning 
to  make  difficulties,  when  I  quieted  him  by  pointing  out 
that  the  money  had  all  come  to  me  from  his  aunt 
over  his  own  head,  and  reminded  him  there  had 
been  an  understanding  between  her  and  me  that  I 
should  do  much  as  I  was  doing,  if  occasion  should 
arise. 

He  wanted  his  children  to  be  brought  up  in  the  fresh 
pure  air,  and  among  other  children  who  were  happy 
and  contented ;  but  being  still  ignorant  of  the  fortune 
that  awaited  him,  he  insisted  that  they  should  pass  their 
earlier  years  among  the  poor  rather  than  the  rich.  I 
remonstrated,  but  he  was  very  decided  about  it;  and 
when  I  reflected  that  they  were  illegitimate,  I  was  not 
sure  but  that  what  Ernest  proposed  might  be  as  well  for 
everyone  in  the  end.  They  were  still  so  young  that 
it  did  not  much  matter  where  they  were,  so  long  as 
they  were  with  kindly,  decent  people,  and  in  a  healthy 
neighbourhood. 

"I  shall  be  just  as  unkind  to  my  children,"  he  said, 
"as  my  grandfather  was  to  my  father,  or  my  father  to 
me.  If  they  did  not  succeed  in  making  their  children 
love  them,  neither  shall  I.  I  say  to  myself  that  I  should 
like  to  do  so,  but  so  did  they.  I  can  make  sure  that 
they  shall  not  know  how  much  they  would  have  hated 
me  if  they  had  had  much  to  do  with  me,  but  this  is  all 
I  can  do.  If  I  must  ruin  their  prospects,,  let  me  do  so 
at  a  reasonable  time  before  they  are  old  enough  to 
feel  it." 

He  mused  a  little  and  added  with  a  laugh: — 

"A  man  first  quarrels  with  his  father  about  three- 
quarters  of  a  year  before  he  is  born.  It  is  then  he  insists 
on  setting  up  a  separate  establishment;  when  this  has 
been  once  agreed  to,  the  more  complete  the  separation 
for  ever  after  the  better  for  both."  Then  he  said  more 
seriously:  "I  want  to  put  the  children  where  they  will 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         397 

be  well  and  happy,  and  where  they  will  not  be  betrayed 
into  the  misery  of  false  expectations." 

In  the  end  he  remembered  that  on  his  Sunday  walks 
he  had  more  than  once  seen  a  couple  who  lived  on  the 
waterside  a  few  miles  below  Gravesend,  just  where  the 
sea  was  beginning,  and  who  he  thought  would  do.  They 
had  a  family  of  their  own  fast  coming  on  and  the  chil- 
dren seemed  to  thrive ;  both  father  and  mother  indeed 
were  comfortable,  well  grown  folks,  in  whose  hands 
young  people  would  be  likely  to  have  as  fair  a  chance 
of  coming  to  a  good  development  as  in  those  of  any 
whom  he  knew. 

We  went  down  to  see  this  couple,  and  as  I  thought 
no  less  well  of  them  than  Ernest  did,  we  offered  them 
a  pound  a  week  to  take  the  children  and  bring  them  up 
as  though  they  were  their  own.  They  jumped  at  the 
offer,  and  in  another  day  or  two  we  brought  the  chil- 
dren down  and  left  them,  feeling  that  we  had  done  as 
well  as  we  could  by  them,  at  any  rate  for  the  present. 
Then  Ernest  sent  his  small  stock  of  goods  to  Deben- 
ham's,  gave  up  the  house  he  had  taken  two  and  a  half 
years  previously,  and  returned  to  civilisation. 

I  had  expected  that  he  would  now  rapidly  recover, 
and  was  disappointed  to  see  him  get  as  I  thought  de- 
cidedly worse.  Indeed,  before  long  I  thought  him  look- 
ing so  ill  that  I  insisted  on  his  going  with  me  to  consult 
one  of  the  most  eminent  doctors  in  London.  This  gen- 
tleman said  there  was  no  acute  disease  but  that  my 
young  friend  was  suffering  from  nervous  prostration, 
the  result  of  long  and  severe  mental  suffering,  from 
which  there  was  no  remedy  except  time,  prosperity  and 
rest. 

He  said  that  Ernest  must  have  broken  down  later  on, 
but  that  he  might  have  gone  on  for  some  months  yet. 
It  was  the  suddenness  of  the  relief  from  tension  which 
had  knocked  him  over  now. 

"Cross  him,"  said  the  doctor,  "at  once.     Crossing  is 


398         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

the  great  medical  discovery  of  the  age.  Shake  him  out 
of  himself  by  shaking  something  else  into  him." 

I  had  not  told  him  that  money  was  no  object  to  us, 
and  I  think  he  had  reckoned  me  up  as  not  over  rich. 
He  continued : — 

"Seeing  is  a  mode  of  touching,  touching  is  a  mode 
of  feeding,  feeding  is  a  mode  of  assimilation,  assimilation 
is  a  mode  of  re-creation  and  reproduction,  and  this  is 
crossing — shaking  yourself  into  something  else  and  some- 
thing else  into  you." 

He  spoke  laughingly,  but  it  was  plain  he  was  serious. 
He  continued: — 

"People  are  always  coming  to  me  who  want  crossing, 
or  change,  if  you  prefer  it,  and  who  I  know  have  not 
money  enough  to  let  them  get  away  from  London.  This 
has  set  me  thinking  how  I  can  best  cross  them  even  if 
they  cannot  leave  home,  and  I  have  made  a  list  of  cheap 
London  amusements  which  I  recommend  to  my  patients ; 
none  of  them  cost  more  than  a  few  shillings  or  take 
more  than  half  a  day  or  a  day." 

I  explained  that  there  was  no  occasion  to  consider 
money  in  this  case. 

"I  am  glad  of  it,"  he  said,  still  laughing.  "The  homoeo- 
pathists  use  aurum  as  a  medicine,  but  they  do  not  give 
it  in  large  doses  enough ;  if  you  can  dose  your  young 
friend  with  this  pretty  freely  you  will  soon  bring  him 
round.  However,  Mr.  Pontifex  is  not  well  enough  to 
stand  so  great  a  change  as  going  abroad  yet;  from 
what  you  tell  me  I  should  think  he  had  had  as  much 
change  lately  as  is  good  for  him.  If  he  were  to  go 
abroad  now  he  would  probably  be  taken  seriously  ill 
within  a  week.  We  must  wait  till  he  has  recovered  tone 
a  little  more.  I  will  begin  by  ringing  my  London  changes 
on  him." 

He  thought  a  little  and  then  said : — 

"I  have  found  the  Zoological  Gardens  of  service  to 
many  of  my  patients.  I  should  prescribe  for  Mr.  Pon- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         399 

tifex  a  course  of  the  larger  mammals.  Don't  let  him 
think  he  is  taking  them  medicinally,  but  let  him  go  to 
their  house  twice  a  week  for  a  fortnight,  and  stay  with 
the  hippopotamus,  the  rhinoceros,  and  the  elephants,  till 
they  begin  to  bore  him.  I  find  these  beasts  do  my  pa- 
tients more  good  than  any  others.  The  monkeys  are 
not  a  wide  enough  cross;  they  do  not  stimulate  suffi- 
ciently. The  larger  carnivora  are  unsympathetic.  The 
reptiles  are  worse  than  useless,  and  the  marsupials  are 
not  much  better.  Birds  again,  except  parrots,  are  not 
very  beneficial ;  he  may  look  at  them  now  and  again, 
but  with  the  elephants  and  the  pig  tribe  generally  he 
should  mix  just  now  as  freely  as  possible. 

"Then,  you  know,  to  prevent  monotony  I  should  send 
him,  say,  to  morning  service  at  the  Abbey  before  he  goes. 
He  need  not  stay  longer  than  the  Te  Deum.  I  don't 
know  why,  but  Jubilates  are  seldom  satisfactory.  Just 
let  him  look  in  at  the  Abbey,  and  sit  quietly  in  Poets' 
Corner  till  the  main  part  of  the  music  is  over.  Let  him 
do  this  two  or  three  times,  not  more,  before  he  goes  to 
the  Zoo. 

"Then  next  day  send  him  down  to  Gravesend  by  boat. 
By  all  means  let  him  go  to  the  theatres  in  the  evenings 
— and  then  let  him  come  to  me  again  in  a  fortnight." 

Had  the  doctor  been  less  eminent  in  his  profession  I 
should  have  doubted  whether  he  was  in  earnest,  but  I 
knew  him  to  be  a  man  of  business  who  would  neither 
waste  his  own  time  nor  that  of  his  patients.  As  soon  as 
we  were  out  of  the  house  we  took  a  cab  to  Regent's 
Park,  and  spent  a  couple  of  hours  in  sauntering  round 
the  different  houses.  Perhaps  it  was  on  account  of 
what  the  doctor  had  told  me,  but  I  certainly  became 
aware  of  a  feeling  I  had  never  experienced  before.  I 
mean  that  I  was  receiving  an  influx  of  new  life,  or  de- 
riving new  ways  of  looking  at  life — which  is  the  same 
thing — by  the  process.  I  found  the  doctor  quite  right 
in  his  estimate  of  the  larger  mammals  as  the  ones  which 


400         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

on  the  whole  were  most  beneficial,  and  observed  that 
Ernest,  who  had  heard  nothing  of  what  the  doctor  had 
said  to  me,  lingered  instinctively  in  front  of  them.  As 
for  the  elephants,  especially  the  baby  elephant,  he  seemed 
to  be  drinking  in  large  draughts  of  their  lives  to  the  re- 
creation and  regeneration  of  his  own. 

We  dined  in  the  gardens,  and  I  noticed  with  pleasure 
that  Ernest's  appetite  was  already  improved.  Since  this 
time,  whenever  I  have  been  a  little  out  of  sorts  myself 
I  have  at  once  gone  up  to  Regent's  Park,  and  have  in- 
variably been  benefited.  I  mention  this  here  m  the  hope 
that  some  one  or  other  of  my  readers  may  find  the  hint 
a  useful  one. 

At  the  end  of  his  fortnight  my  hero  was  much  better, 
more  so  even  than  our  friend  the  doctor  had  expected. 
"Now,"  he  said,  "Mr.  Pontifex  may  go  abroad,  and  the 
sooner  the  better.  Let  him  stay  a  couple  of  months." 

This  was  the  first  Ernest  had  heard  about  his  going 
abroad,  and  he  talked  about  my  not  being  able  to  spare 
him  for  so  long.  I  soon  made  this  all  right. 

"It  is  now  the  beginning  of  April,"  said  I ;  "go  down  to 
Marseilles  at  once,  and  take  steamer  to  Nice.  Then 
saunter  down  the  Riviera  to  Genoa — from  Genoa  go  to 
Florence,  Rome  and  Naples,  and  come  home  by  way  of 
Venice  and  the  Italian  lakes." 

"And  won't  you  come  too?"  said  he,  eagerly. 

I  said  I  did  not  mind  if  I  did,  so  we  began  to  make 
our  arrangements  next  morning,  and  completed  them 
within  a  very  few  days. 


CHAPTER   LXXX 

WE  left  by  the  night  mail,  crossing  from  Dover.  The 
night  was  soft,  and  there  was  a  bright  moon  upon  the 
sea.  "Don't  you  love  the  smell  of  grease  about  the 
engine  of  a  Channel  steamer?  Isn't  there  a  lot  of  hope 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         401 

in  it?"  said  Ernest  to  me,  for  he  had  been  to  Normandy 
one  summer  as  a  boy  with  his  father  and  mother,  and 
the  smell  carried  him  back  to  days  before  those  in 
which  he  had  begun  to  bruise  himself  against  the  great 
outside  world.  "I  always  think  one  of  the  best  parts  of 
going  abroad  is  the  first  thud  of  the  piston,  and  the  first 
gurgling  of  the  water  when  the  paddle  begins  to 
strike  it." 

It  was  very  dreamy  getting  out  at  Calais,  and  trudging 
about  with  luggage  in  a  foreign  town  at  an  hour  when 
we  were  generally  both  of  us  in  bed  and  fast  asleep, 
but  we  settled  down  to  sleep  as  soon  as  we  got  into  the 
railway  carriage,  and  dozed  till  we  had  passed  Amiens. 
Then  waking  when  the  first  signs  of  morning  crispness 
were  beginning  to  show  themselves,  I  saw  that  Ernest 
was  already  devouring  every  object  we  passed  with  quick 
sympathetic  curiousness.  There  was  not  a  peasant  in 
a  blou-se  driving  his  cart  betimes  along  the  road  to  mar- 
ket, not  a  signalman's  wife  in  her  husband's  hat  and 
coat  waving  a  green  flag,  not  a  shepherd  taking  out  his 
sheep  to  the  dewy  pastures,  not  a  bank  of  opening  cow- 
slips as  we  passed  through  the  railway  cuttings,  but  he 
was  drinking  it  all  in  with  an  enjoyment  too  deep  for 
words.  The  name  of  the  engine  that  drew  us  was  Mo- 
zart, and  Ernest  liked  this  too. 

We  reached  Paris  by  six,  and  had  just  time  to  get 
across  the  town  and  take  a  morning  express  train  to 
Marseilles,  but  before  noon  my  young  friend  was  tired 
out  and  had  resigned  himself  to  a  series  of  sleeps  which 
were  seldom  intermitted  for  more  than  an  hour  or  so 
together.  He  fought  against  this  for  a  time,  but  in  the 
end  consoled  himself  by  saying  it  was  so  nice  to  have 
so  much  pleasure  that  he  could  afford  to  throw  a  lot 
of  it  away.  Having  found  a  theory  on  which  to  justify 
himself,  he  slept  in  peace. 

At  Marseilles  we  rested,  and  there  the  excitement 
of  the  change  proved,  as  I  had  half  feared  it  would,  too 


4O2         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

much  for  my  godson's  still  enfeebled  state.  For  a  few 
days  he  was  really  ill,  but  after  this  he  righted.  For 
my  own  part  I  reckon  being  ill  as  one  of  the  great  pleas- 
ures of  life,  provided  one  is  not  too  ill  and  is  not  obliged 
to  work  till  one  is  better.  I  remember  being  ill  once 
in  a  foreign  hotel  myself  and  how  much  I  enjoyed  it. 
To  lie  there  careless  of  everything,  quiet  and  warm, 
and  with  no  weight  upon  the  mind,  to  hear  the  clink- 
ing of  the  plates  in  the  far-off  kitchen  as  the  scullion 
rinsed  them  and  put  them  by ;  to  watch  the  soft  shadows 
come  and  go  upon  the  ceiling  as  the  sun  came  out  or 
went  behind  a  cloud;  to  listen  to  the  pleasant  murmur- 
ing of  the  fountain  in  the  court  below,  and  the  shaking 
of  the  bells  on  the  horses'  collars  and  the  clink  of  their 
hoofs  upon  the  ground  as  the  flies  plagued  them;  not 
only  to  be  a  lotus-eater  but  to  know  that  it  was  one's 
duty  to  be  a  lotus-eater.  "Oh,"  I  thought  to  myself,  "if 
I  could  only  now,  having  so  forgotten  care,  drop  off  to 
sleep  for  ever,  would  not  this  be  a  better  piece  of  for- 
tune than  any  I  can  ever  hope  for?" 

Of  course  it  would,  but  we  would  not  take  it  though 
it  were  offered  us.  No  matter  what  evil  may  befall  us, 
we  will  mostly  abide  by  it  and  see  it  out. 

I  could  see  that  Ernest  felt  much  as  I  had  felt  my- 
self. He  said  little,  but  noted  everything.  Once  only 
did  he  frighten  me.  He  called  me  to  his  bedside  just 
as  it  was  getting  dusk  and  said  in  a  grave,  quiet  manner 
that  he  should  like  to  speak  to  me. 

"I  have  been  thinking,"  he  said,  "that  I  may  perhaps 
never  recover  from  this  illness,  and  in  case  I  do  not  I 
should  like  you  to  know  that  there  is  only  one  thing 
which  weighs  upon  me.  I  refer,"  he  continued  after  a 
slight  pause,  "to  my  conduct  towards  my  father  and 
mother.  I  have  been  much  too  good  to  them.  I  treated 
them  much  too  considerately,"  on  which  he  broke  into 
a  smile  which  assured  me  that  there  was  nothing  seri- 
ously amiss  with  him. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh          403 

On  the  walls  of  his  bedroom  were  a  series  of  French 
Revolution  prints  representing  events  in  the  life  of  Ly- 
curgus.  There  was  "Grandeur  d'ame  de  Lycurgue,"  and 
"Lycurgue  consulte  1'oracle,"  and  then  there  was  "Cal- 
ciope  a  la  Cour."  Under  this  was  written  in  French 
and  Spanish:  "Modele  de  grace  et  de  beaute,  la  jeune 
Calciope  non  moins  sage  que  belle  avait  merite  1'estime 
et  1'attachement  du  vertueux  Lycurgue.  Vivement  epris 
de  tant  de  charmes,  1'illustre  philosophe  la  conduisait 
dans  le  temple  de  Junon,  ou  ils  s'unirent  par  un  serment 
sacre.  Apres  cette  auguste  ceremonie,  Lycurgue  s'em- 
pressa  de  conduire  sa  jeune  epouse  au  palais  de  son  frere 
Polydecte,  Roi  de  Lacedemon.  Seigneur,  lui  dit-il,  la 
vertueuse  Calciope  vient  de  recevoir  mes  voeux  aux  pieds 
des  autels,  j'ose  vous  prier  d'approuver  cette  union.  Le 
Roi  temoigna  d'abord  quelque  surprise,  mais  1'estime 
qu'il  avait  pour  son,  frere  lui  inspira  une  reponse  pleine 
de  bienveillance.  II  s'approcha  aussitot  de  Calciope 
qu'il  embrassa  tendrement,  combla  ensuite  Lycurgue  de 
prevenances  et  parut  tres  satisfait." 

He  called  my  attention  to  this  and  then  said  some- 
what timidly  that  he  would  rather  have  married  Ellen 
than  Calciope.  I  saw  he  was  hardening  and  made  no 
hesitation  about  proposing  that  in  another  day  or  two 
we  should  proceed  upon  our  journey. 

I  will  not  weary  the  reader  by  taking  him  with  us  over 
beaten  ground.  We  stopped  at  Siena,  Cortona,  Orvieto, 
Perugia  and  many  other  cities,  and  then  after  a  fort- 
night passed  between  Rome  and  Naples  went  to  the  Ve- 
netian provinces  and  visited  all  those  wondrous  towns 
that  lie  between  the  southern  slopes  of  the  Alps  and 
the  northern  ones  of  the  Apennines,  coming  back  at  last 
by  the  S.  Gothard.  I  doubt  whether  he  had  enjoyed 
the  trip  more  than  I  did  myself,  but  it  was  not  till  we 
were  on  the  point  of  returning  that  Ernest  had  recovered 
strength  enough  to  be  called  fairly  well,  and  it  was  not 
for  many  months  that  he  so  completely  lost  all  sense  of 


404         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

the  wounds  which  the  last  four  years  had  inflicted  on 
him  as  to  feel  as  though  there  were  a  scar  and  a  scar 
only  remaining. 

They  say  that  when  people  have  lost  an  arm  or  a  foot 
they  feel  pains  in  it  now  and  again  for  a  long  while 
after  they  have  lost  it.  One  pain  which  he  had  almost 
forgotten  came  upon  him  on  his  return  to  England,  I 
mean  the  sting  of  his  having  been  imprisoned.  As  long 
as  he  was  only  a  small  shop-keeper  his  imprisonment 
mattered  nothing;  nobody  knew  of  it,  and  if  they  had 
known  they  would  not  have  cared ;  now,  however,  though 
he  was  returning  to  his  old  position  he  was  returning 
to  it  disgraced,  and  the  pain  from  which  he  had  been 
saved  in  the  first  instance  by  surroundings  so  new  that 
he  had  hardly  recognised  his  own  identity  in  the  middle 
of  them,  came  on  him  as  from  a  wound  inflicted  yes- 
terday. 

He  thought  of  the  high  resolves  which  he  had  made 
in  prison  about  using  his  disgrace  as  a  vantage  ground 
of  strength  rather  than  trying  to  make  people  forget  it. 
"That  was  all  very  well  then,"  he  thought  to  himself, 
"when  the  grapes  were  beyond  my  reach,  but  now  it  is 
different."  Besides,  who  but  a  prig  would  set  himself 
high  aims,  or  make  high  resolves  at  all  ? 

Some  of  his  old  friends,  on  learning  that  he  had  got 
rid  of  his  supposed  wife  and  was  now  comfortably  off 
again,  wanted  to  renew  their  acquaintance ;  he  was  grate- 
ful to  them  and  sometimes  tried  to  meet  their  advances 
half  way,  but  it  did  not  do,  and  ere  long  he  shrank  back 
into  himself,  pretending  not  to  know  them.  An  infernal 
demon  of  honesty  haunted  him  which  made  him  say  to 
himself :  "These  men  know  a  great  deal,  but  do  not 
know  all — if  they  did  they  would  cut  me — and  therefore 
I  have  no  right  to  their  acquaintance." 

He  thought  that  everyone  except  himself  was  sans 
peur  et  sans  reproche.  Of  course  they  must  be,  for 
if  they  had  not  been,  would  they  not  have  been  bound 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         405 

to  warn  all  who  had  anything  to  do  with  them  of  their 
deficiencies?  Well,  he  could  not  do  this,  and  he  would 
not  have  people's  acquaintance  under  false  pretences,  so 
he  gave  up  even  hankering  after  rehabilitation  and  fell 
back  upon  his  old  tastes  for  music  and  literature. 

Of  course  he  has  long  since  found  out  how  silly  all 
this  was,  how  silly  I  mean  in  theory,  for  in  practice  it 
worked  better  than  it  ought  to  have  done,  by  keeping 
him  free  from  liaisons  which  would  have  tied  his  tongue 
and  made  him  see  success  elsewhere  than  where  he  came 
in  time  to  see  it.  He  did  what  he  did  instinctively  and 
for  no  other  reason  than  because  it  was  most  natural 
to  him.  So  far  as  he  thought  at  all,  he  thought  wrong, 
but  what  he  did  was  right.  I  said  something  of  this 
kind  to  him  once  not  so  very  long  ago,  and  told  him  he 
had  always  aimed  high.  "I  never  aimed  at  all,"  he  re- 
plied a  little  indignantly,  "and  you  may  be  sure  I  should 
have  aimed  low  enough  if  I  had  thought  I  had  got  the 
chance." 

I  suppose  after  all  that  no  one  whose  mind  was  not, 
to  put  it  mildly,  abnormal,  ever  yet  aimed  very  high 
out  of  pure  malice  aforethought.  I  once  saw  a  fly  alight 
on  a  cup  of  hot  coffee  on  which  the  milk  had  formed 
a  thin  skin ;  he  perceived  his  extreme  danger,  and  I  noted 
with  what  ample  strides  and  almost  supermuscan  effort 
he  struck  across  the  treacherous  surface  and  made  for 
the  edge  of  the  cup — for  the  ground  was  not  solid  enough 
to  let  him  raise  himself  from  it  by  his  wings.  As  I 
watched  him  I  fancied  that  so  supreme  a  moment  of 
difficulty  and  danger  might  leave  him  with  an  increase 
of  moral  and  physical  power  which  might  even  descend 
in  some  measure  to  his  offspring.  But  surely  he  would 
not  have  got  the  increased  moral  power  if  he  could  have 
helped  it,  and  he  will  not  knowingly  alight  upon  an- 
other cup  of  hot  coffee.  The  more  I  see,  the  more  sure 
I  am  that  it  does  not  matter  why  people  do  the  right 
thing  so  long  only  as  they  do  it,  nor  why  they  may 


406         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

have  done  the  wrong  if  they  have  done  it.  The  result 
depends  upon  the  thing  done  and  the  motive  goes  for 
nothing.  I  have  read  somewhere,  but  cannot  remember 
where,  that  in  some  country  district  there  was  once  a 
great  scarcity  of  food,  during  which  the  poor  suffered 
acutely ;  many  indeed  actually  died  of  starvation,  and  all 
were  hard  put  to  it.  In  one  village,  however,  there  was 
a  poor  widow  with  a  family  of  young  children,  who, 
though  she  had  small  visible  means  of  subsistence,  still 
looked  well-fed  and  comfortable,  as  also  did  all  her  little 
ones.  "How,"  everyone  asked,  "did  they  manage  to 
live?"  It  was  plain  they  had  a  secret,  and  it  was  equally 
plain  that  it  could  be  no  good  one ;  for  there  came  a  hur- 
ried, hunted  look  over  the  poor  woman's  face  if  any- 
one alluded  to  the  way  in  which  she  and  hers  throve 
when  others  starved;  the  family,  moreover,  were  some- 
times seen  out  at  unusual  hours  of  the  night,  and  evi- 
dently brought  things  home,  which  could  hardly  have 
been  honestly  come  by.  They  knew  they  were  under 
suspicion,  and,  being  hitherto  of  excellent  name,  it  made 
them  very  unhappy,  for  it  must  be  confessed  that  they 
believed  what  they  did  to  be  uncanny  if  not  absolutely 
wicked;  nevertheless,  in  spite  of  this  they  throve,  and 
kept  their  strength  when  all  their  neighbours  were 
pinched. 

At  length  matters  came  to  a  head  and  the  clergyman 
of  the  parish  cross-questioned  the  poor  woman  so  closely 
that  with  many  tears  and  a  bitter  sense  of  degradation 
she  confessed  the  truth;  she  and  her  children  went  into 
the  hedges  and  gathered  snails,  which  they  made  into 
broth  and  ate — could  she  ever  be  forgiven?  Was  there 
any  hope  of  salvation  for  her  either  in  this  world  or 
the  next  after  such  unnatural  conduct? 

So  again  I  have  heard  of  an  old  dowager  countess 
whose  money  was  all  in  Consols ;  she  had  had  many  sons, 
and  in  her  anxiety  to  give  the  younger  ones  a  good  start, 
wanted  a  larger  income  than  Consols  would  give  her. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         407 

She  consulted  her  solicitor  and  was  advised  to  sell  her 
Consols  and  invest  in  the  London  and  North- Western 
Railway,  then  at  about  85.  This  was  to  her  what  eating 
snails  was  to  the  poor  widow  whose  story  I  have  told 
above.  With  shame  and  grief,  as  of  one  doing  an  un- 
clean thing — but  her  boys  must  have  their  start — she 
did  as  she  was  advised.  Then  for  a  long  while  she  could 
not  sleep  at  night  and  was  haunted  by  a  presage  of 
disaster.  Yet  what  happened?  She  started  her  boys, 
and  in  a  few  years  found  her  capital  doubled  into  the 
bargain,  on  which  she  sold  out  and  went  back  again  to 
Consols  and  died  in  the  full  blessedness  of  fund-holding. 

She  thought,  indeed,  that  she  was  doing  a  wrong  and 
dangerous  thing,  but  this  had  absolutely  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  Suppose  she  had  invested  in  the  full  confidence 
of  a  recommendation  by  some  eminent  London  banker 
whose  advice  was  bad,  and  so  had  lost  all  her  money, 
and  suppose  she  had  done  this  with  a  light  heart  and 
with  no  conviction  of  sin — would  her  innocence  of  evil 
purpose  and  the  excellence  of  her  motive  have  stood  her 
in  any  stead?  Not  they. 

But  to  return  to  my  story.  Towneley  gave  my  hero 
most  trouble.  Towneley,  as  I  have  said,  knew  that  Er- 
nest would  have  money  soon,  but  Ernest  did  not  of 
course  know  that  he  knew  it.  Towneley  was  rich  him- 
self, and  was  married  now;  Ernest  would  be  rich  soon, 
had  bona  fide  intended  to  be  married  already,  and  would 
doubtless  marry  a  lawful  wife  later  on.  Such  a  man 
was  worth  taking  pains  with,  and  when  Towneley  one 
day  met  Ernest  in  the  street,  and  Ernest  tried  to  avoid 
him,  Towneley  would  not  have  it,  but  with  his  usual 
quick  good  nature  read  his  thoughts,  caught  him,  morally 
speaking,  by  the  scruff  of  his  neck,  and  turned  him  laugh- 
ingly inside  out,  telling  him  he  would  have  no  such  non- 
sense. 

Towneley  was  just  as  much  Ernest's  idol  now  as  he 
had  ever  been,  and  Ernest,  who  was  very  easily  touched, 


408         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

felt  more  gratefully  and  warmly  than  ever  towards  him, 
but  there  was  an  unconscious  something  which  was 
stronger  than  Towneley,  and  made  my  hero  determine 
to  break  with  him  more  determinedly  perhaps  than  with 
any  other  living  person ;  he  thanked  him  in  a  low,  hurried 
voice  and  pressed  his  hand,  while  tears  came  into  his 
eyes  in  spite  of  all  his  efforts  to  repress  them.  "If  we 
meet  again,"  he  said,  "do  not  look  at  me,  but  if  here- 
after you  hear  of  me  writing  things  you  do  not  like, 
think  of  me  as  charitably  as  you  can,"  and  so  they  parted. 

"Towneley  is  a  good  fellow,"  said  I,  gravely,  "and 
you  should  not  have  cut  him." 

"Towneley,"  he  answered,  "is  not  only  a  good  fellow, 
but  he  is  without  exception  the  very  best  man  I  ever  saw 
in  my  life — except,"  he  paid  me  the  compliment  of  say- 
ing, "yourself ;  Towneley  is  my  notion  of  everything 
which  I  should  most  like  to  be — but  there  is  no  real 
solidarity  between  us.  I  should  be  in  perpetual  fear  of 
losing  his  good  opinion  if  I  said  things  he  did  not  like, 
and  I  mean  to  say  a  great  many  things,"  he  continued 
more  merrily,  "which  Towneley  will  not  like." 

A  man,  as  I  have  said  already,  can  give  up  father  and 
mother  for  Christ's  sake  tolerably  easily  for  the  most 
part,  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  give  up  people  like  Towne- 
ley. 

CHAPTER   LXXXI 

So  he  fell  away  from  all  old  friends  except  myself  and 
three  or  four  old  intimates  of  my  own,  who  were  as  sure 
to  take  to  him  as  he  to  them,  and  who  like  myself  en- 
joyed getting  hold  of  a  young  fresh  mind.  Ernest  at- 
tended to  the  keeping  of  my  account  books  whenever 
there  was  anything  which  could  possibly  be  attended  to, 
which  there  seldom  was,  and  spent  the  greater  part  of 
the  rest  of  his  time  in  adding  to  the  many  notes  and 
tentative  essays  which  had  already  accumulated  in  his 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         409 

portfolios.  Anyone  who  was  used  to  writing  could  see 
at  a  glance  that  literature  was  his  natural  development, 
and  I  was  pleased  at  seeing  him  settle  down  to  it  so 
spontaneously.  I  was  less  pleased,  however,  to  observe 
that  he  would  still  occupy  himself  with  none  but  the 
most  serious,  I  had  almost  said  solemn,  subjects,  just 
as  he  never  cared  about  any  but  the  most  serious  kind 
of  music. 

I  said  to  him  one  day  that  the  very  slender  reward 
which  God  had  attached  to  the  pursuit  of  serious  in- 
quiry was  a  sufficient  proof  that  He  disapproved  of  it, 
or  at  any  rate  that  He  did  not  set  much  store  by  it  nor 
wish  to  encourage  it. 

He  said:  "Oh,  don't  talk  about  rewards.  Look  at 
Milton,  who  only  got  £5  for  'Paradise  Lost.' " 

"And  a  great  deal  too  much,"  I  rejoined  promptly. 
"I  would  have  given  him  twice  as  much  myself  not  to 
have  written  it  at  all." 

Ernest  was  a  little  shocked.  "At  any  rate,"  he  said 
laughingly,  "I  don't  write  poetry." 

This  was  a  cut  at  me,  for  my  burlesques  were,  of 
course,  written  in  rhyme.  So  I  dropped  the  matter. 

After  a  time  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  reopen  the 
question  of  his  getting  £300  a  year  for  doing,  as  he  said, 
absolutely  nothing,  and  said  he  would  try  to  find  some 
employment  which  should  bring  him  in  enough  to  live 
upon. 

I  laughed  at  this  but  let  him  alone.  He  tried  and 
tried  very  hard  for  a  long  while,  but  I  heed  hardly  say 
was  unsuccessful.  The  older  I  grow,  the  more  con- 
vinced I  become  of  the  folly  and  credulity  of  the  public; 
but  at  the  same  time  the  harder  do  I  see  it  is  to  impose 
oneself  upon  that  folly  and  credulity. 

He  tried  editor  after  editor  with  article  after  article. 
Sometimes  an  editor  listened  to  him  and  told  him  to 
leave  his  articles ;  he  almost  invariably,  however,  had 
them  returned  to  him  in  the  end  with  a  polite  note  say- 


410         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

ing  that  they  were  not  suited  for  the  particular  paper 
to  which  he  had  sent  them.  And  yet  many  of  these 
very  articles  appeared  in  his  later  works,  and  no  one 
complained  of  them,  not  at  least  on  the  score  of  bad 
literary  workmanship.  "I  see,"  he  said  to  me  one  day, 
"that  demand  is  very  imperious,  and  supply  must  be  very 
suppliant." 

Once,  indeed,  the  editor  of  an  important  monthly 
magazine  accepted  an  article  from  him,  and  he  thought 
he  had  now  got  a  footing  in  the  literary  world.  The 
article  was  to  appear  in  the  next  issue  but  one,  and  he 
was  to  receive  proof  from  the  printers  in  about  ten 
days  or  a  fortnight;  but  week  after  week  passed  and 
there  was  no  proof;  month  after  month  went  by  and 
there  was  still  no  room  for  Ernest's  article;  at  length 
after  about  six  months  the  editor  one  morning  told  him 
that  he  had  filled  every  number  of  his  review  for  the 
next  ten  months,  but  that  his  article  should  definitely 
appear.  On  this  he  insisted  on  having  his  MS.  returned 
to  him. 

Sometimes  his  articles  were  actually  published,  and 
he  found  the  editor  had  edited  them  according  to  his 
own  fancy,  putting  in  jokes  which  he  thought  were 
funny,  or  cutting  out  the  very  passage  which  Ernest 
had  considered  the  point  of  the  whole  thing,  and  then, 
though  the  articles  appeared,  when  it  came  to  paying  for 
them  it  was  another  matter,  and  he  never  saw  his  money. 
"Editors,"  he  said  to  me  one  day  about  this  time,  "are 
like  the  people  who  bought  and  sold  in  the  book  of 
Revelation;  there  is  not  one  but  has  the  mark  of  the 
beast  upon  him." 

At  last  after  months  of  disappointment  and  many  a 
tedious  hour  wasted  in  dingy  ante-rooms  (and  of  all  an- 
te-rooms those  of  editors  appear  to  me  to  be  the  dreari- 
est), he  got  a  bona  fide  offer  of  employment  from  one 
of  the  first  class  weekly  papers  through  an  introduction 
I  was  able  to  get  for  him  from  one  who  had  powerful 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         411 

influence  with  the  paper  in  question.  The  editor  sent 
him  a  dozen  long  books  upon  varied  and  difficult  sub- 
jects, and  told  him  to  review  them  in  a  single  article 
within  a  week.  In  one  book  there  was  an  editorial  note 
to  the  effect  that  the  writer  was  to  be  condemned.  Er- 
nest particularly  admired  the  book  he  was  desired  to 
condemn,  and  feeling  how  hopeless  it  was  for  him  to 
do  anything  like  justice  to  the  books  submitted  to  him, 
returned  them  to  the  editor. 

At  last  one  paper  did  actually  take  a  dozen  or  so  of 
articles  from  him,  and  'gave  him  cash  down  a  couple 
of  guineas  apiece  for  them,  but  having  done  this  it  ex- 
pired within  a  fortnight  after  the  last  of  Ernest's  arti- 
cles had  appeared.  It  certainly  looked  very  much  as  if 
the  other  editors  knew  their  business  in  declining  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  my  unlucky  godson. 

I  was  not  sorry  that  he  failed  with  periodical  litera- 
ture, for  writing  for  reviews  or  newspapers  is  bad  train- 
ing for  one  who  may  aspire  to  write  works  of  more  per- 
manent interest.  A  young  writer  should  have  more  time 
for  reflection  than  he  can  get  as  a  contributor  to  the 
daily  or  even  weekly  press.  Ernest  himself,  however, 
was  chagrined  at  rinding  how  unmarketable  he  was. 
"Why,"  he  said  to  me,  "if  I  was  a  well-bred  horse,  or 
sheep,  or  a  pure-bred  pigeon  or  lop-eared  rabbit  I  should 
be  more  salable.  If  I  was  even  a  cathedral  in  a  colonial 
town  people  would  give  me  something,  but  as  it  is  they 
do  not  want  me" ;  and  now  that  he  was  well  and  rested 
he  wanted  to  set  up  a  shop  again,  but  this,  of  course,  I 
would  not  hear  of. 

"What  care  I,"  said  he  to  me  one  day,  "about  being 
what  they  call  a  gentleman?"  And  his  manner  was  al- 
most fierce. 

"What  has  being  a  gentleman  ever  done  for  me  ex- 
cept make  me  less  able  to  prey  and  more  easy  to  be 
preyed  upon?  It  has  changed  the  manner  of  my  being 
swindled,  that  is  all.  But  for  your  kindness  to  me  I 


412         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

should  be  penniless.  Thank  heaven  I  have  placed  my 
children  where  I  have." 

I  begged  him  to  keep  quiet  a  little  longer  and  not  talk 
about  taking  a  shop. 

"Will  being  a  gentleman,"  he  said,  "bring  me  money 
at  the  last,  and  will  anything  bring  me  as  much  peace 
at  the  last  as  money  will?  They  say  that  those  who 
have  riches  enter  hardly  into  the  kingdom  of  Heaven. 
By  Jove,  they  do;  they  are  like  Struldbrugs;  they  live 
and  live  and  live  and  are  happy  for  many  a  long  year 
after  they  would  have  entered  into  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven  if  they  had  been  poor.  I  want  to  live  long  and 
to  raise  my  children,  if  I  see  they  would  be  happier  for 
the  raising;  that  is  what  I  want,  and  it  is  not  what  I 
am  doing  now  that  will  help  me.  Being  a  gentleman  is 
a  luxury  which  I  cannot  afford,  therefore  I  do  not  want 
it.  Let  me  go  back  to  my  shop  again,  and  do  things 
for  people  which  they  want  done  and  will  pay  "me  for 
doing  for  them.  They  know  what  they  want  and  what 
is  good  for  them  better  than  I  can  tell  them." 

It  was  hard  to  deny  the  soundness  of  this,  and  if  he 
had  been  dependent  only  on  the  ^300  a  year  which  he 
was  getting  from  me  I  should  have  advised  him  to  open 
his  shop  again  next  morning.  As  it  was,  I  temporised 
and  raised  obstacles,  and  quieted  him  from  time  to  time 
as  best  I  could. 

Of  course  he  read  Mr.  Darwin's  books  as  fast  as 
they  came  out  and  adopted  evolution  as  an  article  of 
faith.  "It  seems  to  me,"  he  said  once,  "that  I  am  like 
one  of  those  caterpillars  which,  if  they  have  been  in- 
terrupted in  making  their  hammock,  must  begin  again 
from  the  beginning.  So  long  as  I  went  back  a  long 
way  down  in  the  social  scale  I  got  on  all  right,  and 
should  have  made  money  but  for  Ellen ;  when  I  try  to 
take  up  the  work  at  a  higher  stage  I  fail  completely." 
I  do  not  know  whether  the  analogy  holds  good  or  not, 
but  I  am  sure  Ernest's  instinct  was  right  in  telling  him 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         413 

that  after  a  heavy  fall  he  had  better  begin  life  again 
at  a  very  low  stage,  and  as  I  have  just  said,  I  would  have 
let  him  go  back  to  his  shop  if  I  had  not  known  what 
I  did. 

As  the  time  fixed  upon  by  his  aunt  drew  nearer  I  pre- 
pared him  more  and  more  for  what  was  coming,  and 
at  last,  on  his  twenty-eighth  birthday,  I  was  able  to  tell 
him  all  and  to  show  him  the  letter  signed  by  his  aunt 
upon  her  death-bed  to  the  effect  that  I  was  to  hold  the 
money  in  trust  for  him.  His  birthday  happened  that 
year  (1863)  to  be  on  a  Sunday,  but  on  the  following 
day  I  transferred  his  shares  into  his  own  name,  arid 
presented  him  with  the  account  books  which  he  had  been 
keeping  for  the  last  year  and  a  half. 

In  spite  of  all  that  I  had  done  to  prepare  him,  it  was  a 
long  while  before  I  could  get  him  actually  to  believe 
that  the  money  was  his  own.  He  did  not  say  much — 
no  more  did  I,  for  I  am  not  sure  that  I  did  not  feel  as 
much  moved  at  having  brought  my  long  trusteeship  to  a 
satisfactory  conclusion  as  Ernest  did  at  finding  himself 
owner  of  more  than  £70,000.  When  he  did  speak  it  was 
to  jerk  out  a  sentence  or  two  of  reflection  at  a  time. 
"If  I  were  rendering  this  moment  in  music,"  he  said,  "I 
should  allow  myself  free  use  of  the  augmented  sixth." 
A  little  later  I  remember  his  saying  with  a  laugh  that 
had  something  of  a  family  likeness  to  his  aunt's :  "It 
is  not  the  pleasure  it  causes  me  which  I  enjoy  so,  it  is 
the  pain  it  will  cause  to  all  my  friends  except  yourself 
and  Towneley." 

I  said:  "You  cannot  tell  your  father  and  mother — it 
would  drive  them  mad." 

"No,  no,  no,"  said  he,  "it  would  be  too  cruel ;  it  would 
be  like  Isaac  offering  up  Abraham  and  no  thicket  with 
a  ram  in  it  near  at  hand.  Besides,  why  should  I?  We 
have  cut  each  other  these  four  years." 


414         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 


CHAPTER   LXXXII 

IT  almost  seemed  as  though  our  casual  mention  of  Theo- 
bald and  Christina  had  in  some  way  excited  them  from 
a  dormant  to  an  active  state.  During  the  years  that 
had  elapsed  since  they  last  appeared  upon  the  scene  they 
had  remained  at  Battersby,  and  had  concentrated  their 
affection  upon  their  other  children. 

It  had  been  a  bitter  pill  to  Theobald  to  lose  his  power 
of  plaguing  his  first-born ;  if  the  truth  were  known  I 
believe  he  had  felt  this  more  acutely  than  any  disgrace 
which  might  have  been  shed  upon  him  by  Ernest's  im- 
prisonment. He  had  made  one  or  two  attempts  to  re- 
open negotiations  through  me,  but  I  never  said  anything 
about  them  to  Ernest,  for  I  knew  it  would  upset  him. 
I  wrote,  however,  to  Theobald  that  I  had  found  his  son 
inexorable,  and  recommended  him  for  the  present,  at 
any  rate,  to  desist  from  returning  to  the  subject.  This 
I  thought  would  be  at  once  what  Ernest  would  like  best 
and  Theobald  least. 

A  few  days,  however,  after  Ernest  had  come  into  his 
property,  I  received  a  letter  from  Theobald  enclosing 
one  for  Ernest  which  I  could  not  withhold. 

The  letter  ran  thus : — 

"To  MY  SON  ERNEST, — Although  you  have  more  than 
once  rejected  my  overtures  I  appeal  yet  again  to  your 
better  nature.  Your  mother,  who  has  long  been  ailing, 
is,  I  believe,  near  her  end ;  she  is  unable  to  keep  anything 
on  her  stomach,  and  Dr.  Martin  holds  out  but  little  hopes 
of  her  recovery.  She  has  expressed  a  wish  to  see  you, 
and  says  she  knows  you  will  not  refuse  to  come  to  her, 
which,  considering  her  condition,  I  am  unwilling  to  sup- 
pose you  will. 

"I  remit  you  a  Post  Office  order  for  your  fare,  and 
will  pay  your  return  journey. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         415 

"If  you  want  clothes  to  come  in,  order  what  you  con- 
sider suitable,  and  desire  that  the  bill  be  sent  to  me;  I 
will  pay  it  immediately,  to  an  amount  not  exceeding 
eight  or  nine  pounds,  and  if  you  will  let  me  know  what 
train  you  will  come  by,  I  will  send  the  carriage  to  meet 
you.  Believe  me,  Your  affectionate  father, 

"T.    PONTIFEX." 

Of  course  there  could  be  no  hesitation  on  Ernest's 
part.  He  could  afford  to  smile  now  at  his  father's  offer- 
ing to  pay  for  his  clothes,  and  his  sending  him  a  Post 
Office  order  for  the  exact  price  of  a  second-class  ticket, 
and  he  was  of  course  shocked  at  learning  the  state  his 
mother  was  said  to  be  in,  and  touched  at  her  desire  to 
see  him.  He  telegraphed  that  he  would  come  down  at 
once.  I  saw  him  a  little  before  he  started,  and  was 
pleased  to  see  how  well  his  tailor  had  done  by  him. 
Towneley  himself  could  not  have-  been  appointed  more 
becomingly.  His  portmanteau,  his  railway  wrapper, 
everything  he  had  about  him,  was  in  keeping.  I  thought 
he  had  grown  much  better-looking  than  he  had  been  at 
two  or  three  and  twenty.  His  year  and  a  half  of  peace 
had  effaced  all  the  ill  effects  of  his  previous  suffering, 
and  now  that  he  had  become  actually  rich  there  was  an 
air  of  insouciance  and  good  humour  upon  his  face,  as 
of  a  man  with  whom  everything  was  going  perfectly 
right,  which  would  have  made  a  much  plainer  man  good- 
looking.  I  was  proud  of  him  and  delighted  with  him. 
"I  am  sure,"  I  said  to  myself,  "that  whatever  else  he 
may  do,  he  will  never  marry  again." 

The  journey  was  a  painful  one.  As  he  drew  near  to 
the  station  and  caught  sight  of  each  familiar  feature, 
so  strong  was  the  force  of  association  that  he  felt  as 
though  his  coming  into  his  aunt's  money  had  been  a 
dream,  and  he  were  again  returning  to  his  father's  house 
as  he  had  returned  to  it  from  Cambridge  for  the  va- 
cations. Do  what  he  would,  the  old  dull  weight  of 


416         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

home-sickness  began  to  oppress  him,  his  heart  beat  fast 
as  he  thought  of  his  approaching  meeting  with  his  father 
and  mother.  "And  I  shall  have,"  he  said  to  himself,  "to 
kiss  Charlotte."- 

Would  his  father  meet  him  at  the  station?  Would 
he  greet  him  as  though  nothing  had  happened,  or  would 
he  be  cold  and  distant?  How,  again,  would  he  take  the 
news  of  his  son's  good  fortune?  As  the  train  drew  up 
to  the  platform,  Ernest's  eye  ran  hurriedly  over  the  few 
people  who  were  in  the  station.  His  father's  well-known 
form  was  not  among  them,  but  on  the  other  side  of  the 
palings  which  divided  the  station  yard  from  the  platform, 
he  saw  the  pony  carriage,  looking,  as  he  thought,  rather 
shabby,  and  recognised  his  father's  coachman.  In  a  few 
minutes  more  he  was  in  the  carriage  driving  towards 
Battersby.  He  could  not  help  smiling  as  he  saw  the 
coachman  give  a  look  of  surprise  at  finding  him  so  much 
changed  in  personal  appearance.  The  coachman  was  the 
more  surprised  because  when  Ernest  had  last  been  at 
home  he  had  been  dressed  as  a  clergyman,  and  now  he 
was  not  only  a  layman,  but  a  layman  who  was  got  up 
regardless  of  expense.  The  change  was  so  great  that 
it  was  not  till  Ernest  actually  spoke  to  him  that  the  coach- 
man knew  him. 

"How  are  my  father  and  mother  ?"  he  asked  hurriedly, 
as  he  got  into  the  carriage.  "The  Master's  well,  sir," 
was  the  answer,  "but  the  Missis  is  very  sadly."  The 
horse  knew  that  he  was  going  home  and  pulled  hard  at 
the  reins.  The  weather  was  cold  and  raw — the  very  ideal 
of  a  November  day;  in  one  part  of  the  road  the  floods 
were  out,  and  near  here  they  had  to  pass  through  a 
number  of  horsemen  and  dogs,  for  the  hounds  had  met 
that  morning  at  a  place  near  Battersby.  Ernest  saw  sev- 
eral people  whom  he  knew,  but  they  either,  as  is  most 
likely,  did  not  recognise  him,  or  did  not  know  of  his  good 
luck.  When  Battersby  church  tower  drew  near,  and  he 
saw  the  Rectory  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  its  chimneys  just 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         417 

showing  above  the  leafless  trees  with  which  it  was  sur- 
rounded, he  threw  himself  back  in  the  carriage  and  cov- 
ered his  face  with  his  hands. 

It  came  to  an  end,  as  even  the  worst  quarters  of  an 
hour  do,  and  in  a  few  minutes  more  he  was  on  the  steps 
in  front  of  his  father's  house.  His  father,  hearing  the 
carriage  arrive,  came  a  little  way  down  the  steps  to  meet 
him.  Like  the  coachman  he  saw  at  a  glance  that  Ernest 
was  appointed  as  though  money  were  abundant  with  him, 
and  that  he  was  looking  robust  and  full  of  health  and 
vigour. 

This  was  not  what  he  had  bargained  for.  He  wanted 
Ernest  to  return,  but  he  was  to  return  as  any  respectable, 
well-regulated  prodigal  ought  to  return — abject,  broken- 
hearted, asking  forgiveness  from  the  tenderest  and  most 
long-suffering  father  in  the  whole  world.  If  he  should 
have  shoes  and  stockings  and  whole  clothes  at  all,  it 
should  be  only  because  absolute  rags  and  tatters  had  been 
graciously  dispensed  with,  whereas  here  he  was  swagger- 
ing in  a  grey  ulster  and  a  blue  and  white  necktie,  and 
looking  better  than  Theobald  had  ever  seen  him  in  his 
life.  It  was  unprincipled.  Was  it  for  this  that  he  had 
been  generous  enough  to  offer  to  provide  Ernest  with 
decent  clothes  in  which  to  come  and  visit  his  mother's 
death-bed?  Could  any  advantage  be  meaner  than  the 
one  which  Ernest  had  taken?  Well,  he  would  not  go  a 
penny  beyond  the  eight  or  nine  pounds  which  he  had 
promised.  It  was  fortunate  he  had  given  a  limit.  Why, 
he,  Theobald,  had  never  been  able  to  afford  such  a  port- 
manteau in  his  life.  He  was  still  using  an  old  one 
which  his  father  had  turned  over  to  him  when  he  went 
up  to  Cambridge.  Besides,  he  had  said  clothes,  not  a 
portmanteau. 

Ernest  saw  what  was  passing  through  his  father's 
mind,  and  felt  that  he  ought  to  have  prepared  him  in 
some  way  for  what  he  now  saw ;  but  he  had  sent  his  tele- 
gram so  immediately  on  receiving  his  father's  letter,  and 


418         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

had  followed  it  so  promptly  that  it  would  not  have  been 
easy  to  do  so  even  if  he  had  thought  of  it.  He  put  out 
his  hand  and  said  laughingly,  "Oh,  it's  all  paid  for — I  am 
afraid  you  do  not  know  that  Mr.  Overton  has  handed 
over  to  me  Aunt  Alethea's  money." 

Theobald  flushed  scarlet.  "But  why,"  he  said,  and 
these  were  the  first  words  that  actually  crossed  his  lips — 
"if  the  money  was  not  his  to  keep,  did  he  not  hand  it 
over  to  my  brother  John  and  me?"  He  stammered  a 
good  deal  and  looked  sheepish,  but  he  got  the  words  out. 

"Because,  my  dear  father,"  said  Ernest  still  laughing, 
"my  aunt  left  it  to  him  in  trust  for  me,  not  in  trust 
either  for  you  or  for  my  Uncle  John — and  it  has  accu- 
mulated till  it  is  now  over  £70,000.  But  tell  me  how  is 
my  mother  ?" 

"No,  Ernest,"  said  Theobald  excitedly,  "the  matter 
cannot  rest  here;  I  must  know  that  this  is  all  open  and 
above  board." 

This  had  the  true  Theobald  ring  and  instantly  brought 
the  whole  train  of  ideas  which  in  Ernest's  mind  were 
connected  with  his  father.  The  surroundings  were  the 
old  familiar  ones,  but  the  surrounded  were  changed  al- 
most beyond  power  of  recognition.  He  turned  sharply 
on  Theobald  in  a  moment.  I  will  not  repeat  the  words 
he  used,  for  they  came  out  before  he  had  time  to  con- 
sider them,  and  they  might  strike  some  of  my  readers 
as  disrespectful ;  there  were  not  many  of  them,  but  they 
were  effectual.  Theobald  said  nothing,  but  turned  al- 
most of  an  ashen  colour;  he  never  again  spoke  to  his  son 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  necessary  for  him  to  repeat 
what  he  had  said  on  this  occasion.  Ernest  quickly  re- 
covered his  temper  and  again  asked  after  his  mother. 
Theobald  was  glad  enough  to  take  this  opening  now, 
and  replied  at  once  in  the  tone  he  would  have  assumed 
towards  one  he  most  particularly  desired  to  conciliate, 
that  she  was  getting  rapidly  worse  in  spite  of  all  he  had 
been  able  to  do  for  her,  and  concluded  by  saying  she  had 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh      .   419 

been  the  comfort  and  mainstay  of  his  life  for  more 
than  thirty  years,  but  that  he  could  not  wish  it  pro- 
longed. 

The  pair  then  went  upstairs  to  Christina's  room,  the 
one  in  which  Ernest  had  been  born.  His  father  went 
before  him  and  prepared  her  for  her  son's  approach.  The 
poor  woman  raised  herself  in  bed  as  he  came  towards 
her,  and  weeping  as  she  flung  her  arms  around  him, 
cried :  "Oh,  I  knew  he  would  come,  I  knew,  I  knew  he 
could  come." 

Ernest  broke  down  and  wept  as  he  had  not  done  for 
years. 

"Oh,  my  boy,  my  boy,"  she  said  as  soon  as  she  could 
recover  her  voice.  "Have  you  never  really  been  near  us 
for  all  these  years  ?  Ah,  you  do  not  know  how  we  have 
loved  you  and  mourned  over  you,  papa  just  as  much  as  I 
have.  You  know  he  shows  his  feelings  less,  but  I  can 
never  tell  you  how  very,  very  deeply  he  has  felt  for  you. 
Sometimes  at  night  I  have  thought  I  have  heard  foot- 
steps in  the  garden,  and  have  got  quietly  out  of  bed  lest 
I  should  wake  him,  and  gone  to  the  window  to  look  out, 
but  there  has  been  only  dark  or  the  greyness  of  the 
morning,  and  I  have  gone  crying  back  to  bed  again.  Still 
I  think  you  have  been  near  us  though  you  were  too  proud 
to  let  us  know — and  now  at  last  I  have  you  in  my  arms 
once  more,  my  dearest,  dearest  boy." 

How  cruel,  how  infamously  unfeeling  Ernest  thought 
he  had  been. 

"Mother,"  he  said,  "forgive  me — the  fault  was  mine; 
I  ought  not  to  have  been  so  hard;  I  was  wrong,  very 
wrong" ;  the  poor  blubbering  fellow  meant  what  he  said, 
and  his  heart  yearned  to  his  mother  as  he  had  never 
thought  that  it  could  yearn  again.  "But  have  you  never," 
she  continued,  "come  although  it  was  in  the  dark  and 
we  did  not  know  it — oh,  let  me  think  that  you  have  not 
been  so  cruel  as  we  have  thought  you.  Tell  me  that  you 
came  if  only  to  comfort  me  and  make  me  happier." 


420    .     The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Ernest  was  ready.  "I  had  no  money  to  come  with, 
mother,  till  just  lately." 

This  was  an  excuse  Christina  could  understand  and 
make  allowance  for :  "Oh,  then  you  would  have  come, 
and  I  will  take  the  will  for  the  deed — and  now  that  I 
have  you  safe  again,  say  that  you  will  never,  never  leave 
me — not  till — not  till — oh,  my  boy,  have  they  told  you  I 
am  dying?"  She  wept  bitterly,  and  buried  her  head  in 
her  pillow. 

CHAPTER   LXXXIII 

JOEY  and  Charlotte  were  in  the  room.  Joey  was  now 
ordained,  and  was  curate  to  Theobald.  He  and  Ernest 
had  never  been  sympathetic,  and  Ernest  saw  at  a  glance 
that  there  was  no  chance  of  a  rapprochement  between 
them.  He  was  a  little  startled  at  seeing  Joey  dressed  as 
a  clergyman,  and  looking  so  like  what  he  had  looked 
himself  a  few  years  earlier,  for  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  family  likeness  between  the  pair ;  but  Joey's  face  was 
cold  and  was  illumined  with  no  spark  of  Bohemianism; 
he  was  a  clergyman  and  was  going  to  do  as  other  clergy- 
men did,  neither  better  nor  worse.  He  greeted  Ernest 
rather  de  haut  en  bos,  that  is  to  say  he  began  by  trying 
to  do  so,  but  the  affair  tailed  off  unsatisfactorily. 

His  sister  presented  her  cheek  to  him  to  be  kissed. 
How  he  hated  it;  he  had  been  dreading  it  for  the  last 
three  hours.  She,  too,  was  distant  and  reproachful  in 
her  manner,  as  such  a  superior  person  was  sure  to  be. 
She  had  a  grievance  against  him  inasmuch  as  she  was 
still  unmarried.  She  laid  the  blame  of  this  at  Ernest's 
door;  it  was  his  misconduct,  she  maintained  in  secret, 
which  had  prevented  young  men  from  making  offers  to 
her,  and  she  ran  him  up  a  heavy  bill  for  consequential 
damages.  She  and  Joey  had  from  the  first  developed 
an  instinct  for  hunting  with  the  hounds,  and  now  these 
two  had  fairly  identified  themselves  with  the  older  gen- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         421 

eration — that  is  to  say  as  against  Ernest.  On  this  head 
there  was  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  between 
them,  but  between  themselves  there  was  subdued  but 
internecine  warfare. 

This  at  least  was  what  Ernest  gathered,  partly  from 
his  recollections  of  the  parties  concerned,  and  partly  from 
his  observation  of  their  little  ways  during  the  first  half- 
hour  after  his  arrival,  while  they  were  all  together  in  his 
mother's  bedroom — for  as  yet  of  course  they  did  not 
know  that  he  had  money.  He  could  see  that  they  eyed 
him  from  time  to  time  with  a  surprise  not  unmixed  with 
indignation^  and  knew  very  well  what  they  were  think- 
ing. 

Christina  saw  the  change  which  had  come  over  him — 
how  much  firmer  and  more  vigorous  both  in  mind  and 
body  he  seemed  than  when  she  had  last  seen  him. 
She  saw  too  how  well  he  was  dressed,  and,  like  the 
others,  in  spite  of  the  return  of  all  her  affection  for  her 
first-born,  was  a  little  alarmed  about  Theobald's  pocket, 
which  she  supposed  would  have  to  be  mulcted  for  all  this 
magnificence.  Perceiving  this,  Ernest  relieved  her  mind 
and  told  her  all  about  his  aunt's  bequest,  and  how  I  had 
husbanded  it,  in  the  presence  of  his  brother  and  sister 
— who,  however,  pretended  not  to  notice,  or  at  any  rate 
to  notice  as  a  matter  in  which  they  could  hardly  be 
expected  to  take  an  interest. 

His  mother  kicked  a  little  at  first  against  the  money's 
having  gone  to  him  as  she  said  "over  his  papa's  head." 
"Why,  my  dear,"  she  said  in  a  deprecating  tone,  "this 
is  more  than  ever  your  papa  has  had" ;  but  Ernest  calmed 
her  by  suggesting  that  if  Miss  Pontifex  had  known  how 
large  the  sum  would  become  she  would  have  left  the 
greater  part  of  it  to  Theobald.  This  compromise  was 
accepted  by  Christina  who  forthwith,  ill  as  she  was,  en- 
tered with  ardour  into  the  new  position,  and  taking  it  as 
a  fresh  point  of  departure,  began  spending  Ernest's 
money  for  him. 


422         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

I  may  say  in  passing  that  Christina  was  right  in  say- 
ing that  Theobald  had  never  had  so  much  money  as  his 
son  was  now  possessed  of.  In  the  first  place  he  had  not 
had  a  fourteen  years'  minority  with  no  outgoings  to  pre- 
vent the  accumulation  of  the  money,  and  in  the  second 
he,  like  myself  and  almost  everyone  else,  had  suffered 
somewhat  in  the  1846  times — not  enough  to  cripple  him 
or  even  seriously  to  hurt  him,  but  enough  to  give  him  a 
scare  and  make  him  stick  to  debentures  for  the  rest  of  his 
life.  It  was  the  fact  of  his  son's  being  the  richer  man  of 
the  two,  and  of  his  being  rich  so  young,  which  rankled 
with  Theobald  even  more  than  the  fact  of  his  having 
money  at  all.  If  he  had  had  to  wait  till  he  was  sixty  or 
sixty-five,  and  become  broken  down  from  long  failure 
in  the  meantime,  why  then  perhaps  he  might  have  been 
allowed  to  have  whatever  sum  should  suffice  to  keep  him 
out  of  the  workhouse  and  pay  his  death-bed  expenses; 
but  that  he  should  come  in  to  £70,0x30  at  eight  and  twenty, 
and  have  no  wife  and  only  two  children — it  was  intol- 
erable. Christina  was  too  ill  and  in  too  great  a  hurry  to 
spend  the  money  to  care  much  about  such  details  as  the 
foregoing,  and  she  was  naturally  much  more  good- 
natured  than  Theobald. 

"This  piece  of  good  fortune" — she  saw  it  at  a  glance 
— "quite  wiped  out  the  disgrace  of  his  having  been  im- 
prisoned. There  should  be  no  more  nonsense  about  that. 
The  whole  thing  was  a  mistake,  an  unfortunate  mistake, 
true,  but  the  less  said  about  it  now  the  better.  Of  course 
Ernest  would  come  back  and  live  at  Battersby  until  he 
was  married,  and  he  would  pay  his  father  handsomely 
for  board  and  lodging.  In  fact  it  would  be  only  right 
that  Theobald  should  make  a  profit,  nor  would  Ernest 
himself  wish  it  to  be  other  than  a  handsome  one;  this 
was  far  the  best  and  simplest  arrangement ;  and  he  could 
take  his  sister  out  more  than  Theobald  or  Joey  cared  to 
do,  and  would  also  doubtless  entertain  very  handsomely 
at  Battersby. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         423 

"Of  course  he  would  buy  Joey  a  living,  and  make  large 
presents  yearly  to  his  sister — was  there  anything  else? 
Oh!  yes — he  would  become  a  county  magnate  now;  a 
man  with  nearly  £4000  a  year  should  certainly  become  a 
county  magnate.  He  might  even  go  into  Parliament. 
He  had  very  fair  abilities,  nothing  indeed  approaching 
such  genius  as  Dr.  Skinner's,  nor  even  as  Theobald's,  still 
he  was  not  deficient  and  if  he  got  into  Parliament — so 
young  too — there  was  nothing  to  hinder  his  being  Prime 
Minister  before  he  died,  and  if  so,  of  course,  he  would 
become  a  peer.  Oh!  why  did  he  not  set  about  it  all  at 
once,  so  that  she  might  live  to  hear  people  call  her  son 
'my  lord' — Lord  Battersby  she  thought  would  do  very 
nicely,  and  if  she  was  well  enough  to  sit  he  must  certainly 
have  her  portrait  painted  at  full  length  for  one  end  of 
his  large  dining-hall.  It  should  be  exhibited  at  the  Royal 
Academy:  'Portrait  of  Lord  Battersby's  mother/  she 
said  to  herself,  and  her  heart  fluttered  with  all  its  wonted 
vivacity.  If  she  could  not  sit,  happily,  she  had  been 
photographed  not  so  very  long  ago,  and  the  portrait  had 
been  as  successful  as  any  photograph  could  be  of  a  face 
which  depended  so  entirely  upon  its  expression  as  her 
own.  Perhaps  the  painter  could  take  the  portrait  suffi- 
ciently from  this.  It  was  better  after  all  that  Ernest  had 
given  up  the  Church — how  far  more  wisely  God  arranges 
matters  for  us  than  ever  we  can  do  for  ourselves !  She 
saw  it  all  now — it  was  Joey  who  would  become  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  and  Ernest  would  remain  a  layman 
and  become  Prime  Minister"  .  .  .  and  so  on  till  her 
daughter  told  her  it  was  time  to  take  her  medicine. 

I  suppose  this  reverie,  which  is  a  mere  fragment  of 
what  actually  ran  through  Christina's  brain,  occupied 
about  a  minute  and  a  half,  but  it,  or  the  presence  of  her 
son,  seemed  to  revive  her  spirits  wonderfully.  Ill,  dying 
indeed,  and  suffering  as  she  was,  she  brightened  up  so 
as  to  laugh  once  or  twice  quite  merrily  during  the  course 
of  the  afternoon.  Next  day  Dr.  Martin  said  she  was 


424         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

so  much  better  that  he  almost  began  to  have  hopes  of 
her  recovery  again.  Theobald,  whenever  this  was 
touched  upon  as  possible,  would  shake  his  head  and  say : 
"We  can't  wish  it  prolonged,"  and  then  Charlotte  caught 
Ernest  unawares  and  said :  "You  know,  dear  Ernest,  that 
these  ups  and  downs  of  talk  are  terribly  agitating  to 
papa ;  he  could  stand  whatever  comes,  but  it  is  quite  too 
wearing  to  him  to  think  half-a-dozen  different  things 
backwards  and  forwards,  up  and  down  in  the  same 
twenty-four  hours,  and  it  would  be  kinder  of  you  not  to 
do  it — I  mean  not  to  say  anything  to  him  even  though 
Dr.  Martin  does  hold  out  hopes." 

Charlotte  had  meant  to  imply  that  it  was  Ernest  who 
was  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  inconvenience  felt  by  Theo- 
bald, herself,  Joey  and  everyone  else,  and  she  had  actually 
got  words  out  which  should  convey  this ;  true,  she  had 
not  dared  to  stick  to  them  and  had  turned  them  off,  but 
she  had  made  them  hers  at  any  rate  for  one  brief  mo- 
ment, and  this  was  better  than  nothing.  Ernest  noticed 
throughout  his  mother's  illness,  that  Charlotte  found  im- 
mediate occasion  to  make  herself  disagreeable  to  him 
whenever  either  doctor  or  nurse  pronounced  her  mother 
to  be  a  little  better.  When  she  wrote  to  Crampsford  to 
desire  the  prayers  of  the  congregation  (she  was  sure  her 
mother  would  wish  it,  and  that  the  Crampsford  people 
would  be  pleased  at  her  remembrance  of  them),  she  was 
sending  another  letter  on  some  quite  different  subject  at 
the  same  time,  and  put  the  two  letters  into  the  wrong  en- 
velopes. Ernest  was  asked  to  take  these  letters  to  the 
village  postoffice,  and  imprudently  did  so;  when  the 
error  came  to  be  discovered  Christina  happened  to 
have  rallied  a  little.  Charlotte  flew  at  Ernest  imme- 
diately, and  laid  all  the  blame  of  the  blunder  upon  his 
shoulders. 

Except  that  Joey  and  Charlotte  were  more  fully  de- 
veloped, the  house  and  its  inmates,  organic  and  inorganic, 
were  little  changed  since  Ernest  had  last  seen  them. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         425 

The  furniture  and  the  ornaments  on  the  chimney-piece 
were  just  as  they  had  been  ever  since  he  could  remember 
anything  at  all.  In  the  drawing-room,  on  either  side  of 
the  fireplace  there  hung  the  Carlo  Dolci  and  the  Sassofer- 
rato  as  in  old  times ;  there  was  the  water  colour  of  a 
scene  on  the  Lago  Maggiore,  copied  by  Charlotte  from 
an  original  lent  her  by  her  drawing  master,  and  finished 
under  his  direction.  This  was  the  picture  of  which  one 
of  the  servants  had  said  that  it  must  be  good,  for  Mr. 
Pontifex  had  given  ten  shillings  for  the  frame.  The 
paper  on  the  walls  was  unchanged;  the  roses  were  still 
waiting  for  the  bees ;  and  the  whole  family  still  prayed 
night  and  morning  to  be  made  "truly  honest  and  con- 
scientious." 

One  picture  only  was  removed — a  photograph  of  him- 
self which  had  hung  under  one  of  his  father  and  between 
those  of  his  brother  and  sister.  Ernest  noticed  this  at 
prayer  time,  while  his  father  was  reading  about  Noah's 
ark  and  how  they  daubed  it  with  slime,  which,  as  it  hap- 
pened, had  been  Ernest's  favourite  text  when  he  was  a 
boy.  Next  morning,  however,  the  photograph  had  found 
its  way  back  again,  a  little  dusty  and  with  a  bit  of  the 
gilding  chipped  off  from  one  corner  of  the  frame,  but 
there  sure  enough  it  was.  I  suppose  they  put  it  back 
when  they  found  how  rich  he  had  become. 

In  the  dining-room  the  ravens  were  still  trying  to  feed 
Elijah  over  the  fireplace;  what  a  crowd  of  reminiscences 
did  not  this  picture  bring  back!  Looking  out  of  the 
window,  there  were  the  flower  beds  in  the  front  garden 
exactly  as  they  had  been,  and  Ernest  found  himself  look- 
ing hard  against  the  blue  door  at  the  bottom  of  the  gar- 
den to  see  if  there  was  rain  falling,  as  he  had  been  used 
to  look  when  he  was  a  child  doing  lessons  with  his 
father. 

After  their  early  dinner,  when  Joey  and  Ernest  and 
their  father  were  left  alone,  Theobald  rose  and  stood 
in  the  middle  of  the  hearthrug  under  the  Elijah  picture, 


426         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

and  began  to  whistle  in  his  old  absent  way.  He  had  two 
tunes  only — one  was  "In  my  Cottage  near  a  Wood,"  and 
the  other  was  the  Easter  Hymn ;  he  had  been  trying  to 
whistle  them  all  his  life,  but  had  never  succeeded;  he 
whistled  them  as  a  clever  bullfinch  might  whistle  them 
— he  had  got  them,  but  he  had  not  got  them  right;  he 
would  be  a  semitone  out  in  every  third  note  as  though 
reverting  to  some  remote  musical  progenitor,  who  had 
known  none  but  the  Lydian  or  the  Phrygian  mode,  or 
whatever  would  enable  him  to  go  most  wrong  while 
still  keeping  the  tune  near  enough  to  be  recognised. 
Theobald  stood  before  the  middle  of  the  fire  and  whistled 
his  two  tunes  softly  in  his  own  old  way  till  Ernest  left 
the  room ;  the  unchangedness  of  the  external  and  chang- 
edness  of  the  internal  he  felt  were  likely  to  throw  him 
completely  off  his  balance. 

He  strolled  out  of  doors  into  the  sodden  spinney  be- 
hind the  house,  and  solaced  himself  with  a  pipe.  Ere 
long  he  found  himself  at  the  door  of  the  cottage  of  his 
father's  coachman,  who  had  married  an  old  lady's  maid 
of  his  mother's,  to  whom  Ernest  had  been  always  much 
attached  as  she  also  to  him,  for  she  had  known  him 
ever  since  he  had  been  five  or  six  years  old.  Her  name 
was  Susan.  He  sat  down  in  the  rocking-chair  before  her 
fire,  and  Susan  went  on  ironing  at  the  table  in  front  of 
the  window,  and  a  smell  of  hot  flannel  pervaded  the 
kitchen. 

Susan  had  been  retained  too  securely  by  Christina  to 
be  likely  to  side  with  Ernest  all  in  a  moment.  He  knew 
this  very  well,  and  did  not  call  on  her  for  the  sake  of 
support,  moral  or  otherwise.  He  had  called  because  he 
liked  her,  and  also  because  he  knew  that  he  should 
gather  much  in  a  chat  with  her  that  he  should  not  be  able 
to  arrive  at  in  any  other  way. 

"Oh,  Master  Ernest,"  said  Susan,  "why  did  you  not 
come  back  when  your  poor  papa  and  mamma  wanted 
you?  I'm  sure  your  ma  has  said  to  me  a  hundred  times 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         427 

over  if  she  has  said  it  once  that  all  should  be  exactly  as 
it  had  been  before." 

Ernest  smiled  to  himself.  It  was  no  use  explaining  to 
Susan  why  he  smiled,  so  he  said  nothing. 

"For  the  first  day  or  two  I  thought  she  never  would 
get  over  it ;  she  said  it  was  a  judgment  upon  her,  and 
went  on  about  things  as  she  had  said  and  done  many 
years  ago,  before  your  pa  knew  her,  and  I  don't  know 
what  she  didn't  say  or  wouldn't  have  said  only  I  stopped 
her ;  she  seemed  out  of  her  mind  like,  and  said  that  none 
of  the  neighbours  would  ever  speak  to  her  again,  but  the 
next  day  Mrs.  Bushby  (her  that  was  Miss  Cowey,  you 
know)  called,  and  your  ma  always  was  so  fond  of  her, 
and  it  seemed  to  do  her  a  power  o'  good,  for  the  next 
day  she  went  through  all  her  dresses,  and  we  settled  how 
she  should  have  them  altered ;  and  then  all  the  neighbours 
called  for  miles  and  miles  round,  and  your  ma  came  in 
here,  and  said  she  had  been  going  through  the  waters 
of  misery,  and  the  Lord  had  turned  them  to  a  well. 

"  'Oh,  yes,  Susan/  said  she,  'be  sure  it  is  so.  Whom 
the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth,  Susan,'  and  here  she  began 
to  cry  again.  'As  for  him,'  she  went  on,  'he  has  made  his 
bed,  and  he  must  lie  on  it ;  when  he  comes  out  of  prison 
his  pa  will  know  what  is  best  to  be  done,  and  Master  Er- 
nest may  be  thankful  that  he  has  a  pa  so  good  and  so 
long-suffering.' 

"Then  when  you  would  not  see  them,  that  was  a  cruel 
blow  to  your  ma.  Your  pa  did  not  say  anything;  you 
know  your  pa  never  does  say  very  much  unless  he's 
downright  waxy  for  the  time;  but  your  ma  took  on 
dreadful  for  a  few  days,  and  I  never  saw  the  master  look 
so  black ;  but,  bless  you,  it  all  went  off  in  a  few  days,  and 
I  don't  know  that  there's  been  much  difference  in  either 
of  them  since  then,  not  till  your  ma  was  took  ill." 

On  the  night  of  his  arrival  he  had  behaved  well  at 
family  prayers,  as  also  on  the  following  morning;  his 
father  read  about  David's  dying  injunction  to  Solomon 


428         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

in  the  matter  of  Shimei,  but  he  did  not  mind  it.  In  the 
course  of  the  day,  however,  his  corns  had  been  trodden 
on  so  many  times  that  he  was  in  a  misbehaving  humour, 
on  this  the  second  night  after  his  arrival.  He  knelt  next 
Charlotte  and  said  the  responses  perfunctorily,  not  so 
perfunctorily  that  she  should  know  for  certain  that  he 
was  doing  it  maliciously,  but  so  perfunctorily  as  to  make 
her  uncertain  whether  he  might  be  malicious  or  not,  and 
when  he  had  to  pray  to  be  made  truly  honest  and  con- 
scientious he  emphasised  the  "truly."  I  do  not  know 
whether  Charlotte  noticed  anything,  but  she  knelt  at 
some  distance  from  him  during  the  rest  of  his  stay. 
He  assures  me  that  this  was  the  only  spiteful  thing  he 
did  during  the  whole  time  he  was  at  Battersby. 

When  he  went  up  to  his  bedroom,  in  which,  to  do  them 
justice,  they  had  given  him  a  fire,  he  noticed  what  indeed 
he  had  noticed  as  soon  as  he  was  shown  into  it  on  his 
arrival,  that  there  was  an  illuminated  card  framed  and 
glazed  over  his  bed  with  the  words,  "Be  the  day  weary 
or  be  the  day  long,  at  last  it  ringeth  to  evensong."  He 
wondered  to  himself  how  such  people  could  leave  such  a 
card  in  a  room  in  which  their  visitors  would  have  to 
spend  the  last  hours  of  their  evening,  but  he  let  it  alone. 
"There's  not  enough  difference  between  'weary'  and  'long' 
to  warrant  an  'or/  "  he  said,  "but  I  suppose  it  is  all 
right."  I  believe  Christina  had  bought  the  card  at  a 
bazaar  in  aid  of  the  restoration  of  a  neighbouring  church, 
and  having  been  bought  it  had  got  to  be  used — besides, 
the  sentiment  was  so  touching  and  the  illumination  was 
really  lovely.  Anyhow,  no  irony  could  be  more  complete 
than  leaving  it  in  my  hero's  bedroom,  though  assuredly 
no  irony  had  been  intended. 

On  the  third  day  after  Ernest's  arrival  Christina  re- 
lapsed again.  For  the  last  two  days  she  had  been  in 
no  pain  and  had  slept  a  good  deal;  her  son's  presence 
still  seemed  to  cheer  her,  and  she  often  said  how  thankful 
she  was  to  be  surrounded  on  her  death-bed  by  a  family  so 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         429 

happy,  so  God-fearing,  so  united,  but  now  she  began  to 
wander,  and,  being  more  sensible  of  the  approach  of 
death,  seemed  also  more  alarmed  at  the  thoughts  of  the 
Day  of  Judgment. 

She  ventured  more  than  once  or  twice  to  return  to  the 
subject  of  her  sins,  and  implored  Theobald  to  make 
quite  sure  that  they  were  forgiven  her.  She  hinted  that 
she  considered  his  professional  reputation  was  at  stake ; 
it  would  never  do  for  his  own  wife  to  fail  in  securing  at 
any  rate  a  pass.  This  was  touching  Theobald  on  a  tender 
spot;  he  winced  and  rejoined  with  an  impatient  toss  of 
the  head,  "But,  Christina,  they  are  forgiven  you";  and 
then  he  entrenched  himself  in  a  firm  but  dignified  manner 
behind  the  Lord's  prayer.  When  he  rose  he  left  the 
room,  but  called  Ernest  out  to  say  that  he  could  not  wish 
it  prolonged. 

Joey  was  no  more  use  in  quieting  his  mother's  anxiety 
than  Theobald  had  been — indeed  he  was  only  Theobald 
and  water ;  at  last  Ernest,  who  had  not  liked  interfering, 
took  the  matter  in  hand,  and,  sitting  beside  her,  let  her 
pour  out  her  grief  to  him  without  let  or  hindrance. 

She  said  she  knew  she  had  not  given  up  all  for  Christ's 
sake ;  it  was  this  that  weighed  upon  her.  She  had  given 
up  much,  and  had  always  tried  to  give  up  more  year  by 
year,  still  she  knew  very  well  that  she  had  not  been  so 
spiritually  minded  as  she  ought  to  have  been.  If  she  had, 
she  should  probably  have  been  favoured  with  some  direct 
vision  or  communication ;  whereas,  though  God  had 
vouchsafed  such  direct  and  visible  angelic  visits  to  one  of 
her  dear  children,  yet  she  had  had  none  such  herself — 
nor  even  had  Theobald. 

She  was  talking  rather  to  herself  than  to  Ernest  as  she 
said  these  words,  but  they  made  him  open  his  ears.  He 
wanted  to  know  whether  the  angel  had  appeared  to  Joey 
or  to  Charlotte.  He  asked  his  mother,  but  she  seemed 
surprised,  as  though  she  expected  him  to  know  all  about 
it;  then,  as  if  she  remembered,  she  checked  herself  and 


430         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

said,  "Ah  !  yes — you  know  nothing  of  all  this,  and  perhaps 
it  is  as  well."  Ernest  could  not  of  course  press  the  sub- 
ject, so  he  never  found  out  which  of  his  near  relations  it 
was  who  had  had  direct  communication  with  an  immor- 
tal. The  others  never  said  anything  to  him  about  it, 
though  whether  this  was  because  they  were  ashamed,  or 
because  they  feared  he  would  not  believe  the  story  and 
thus  increase  his  own  damnation,  he  could  not  determine. 

Ernest  has  often  thought  about  this  since.  He  tried  to 
get  the  facts  out  of  Susan,  who  he  was  sure  would  know, 
but  Charlotte  had  been  beforehand  with  him.  "No,  Mas- 
ter Ernest,"  said  Susan,  when  he  began  to  question  her, 
"your  ma  has  sent  a  message  to  me  by  Miss  Charlotte 
as  I  am  not  to  say  nothing  at  all  about  it,  and  I  never 
will."  Of  course  no  further  questioning  was  possible. 
It  had  more  than  once  occurred  to  Ernest  that  Charlotte 
did  not  in  reality  believe  more  than  he  did  himself,  and 
this  incident  went  far  to  strengthen  his  surmises,  but  he 
wavered  when  he  remembered  how  she  had  misdirected 
the  letter  asking  for  the  prayers  of  the  congregation. 
"I  suppose,"  he  said  to  himself  gloomily,  "she  does  be- 
lieve in  it  after  all." 

Then  Christina  returned  to  the  subject  of  her  own 
want  of  spiritual-mindedness,  she  even  harped  upon  the 
old  grievance  of  her  having  eaten  black  puddings — true, 
she  had  given  them  up  years  ago,  but  for  how  many 
years  had  she  not  persevered  in  eating  them  after  she  had 
had  misgivings  about  their  having  been  forbidden  !  Then 
there  was  something  that  weighed  on  her  mind  that  had 
taken  place  before  her  marriage,  and  she  should  like 

Ernest  interrupted :  "My  dear  mother,"  he  said,  "you 
are  ill  and  your  mind  is  unstrung ;  others  can  now  judge 
better  about  you  than  you  can;  I  assure  you  that  to  me 
you  seem  to  have  been  the  most  devotedly  unselfish  wife 
and  mother  that  ever  lived.  Even  if  you  have  not  liter- 
ally given  up  all  for  Christ's  sake,  you  have  done  so  prac- 
tically as  far  as  it  was  in  your  power,  and  more  than  this 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         431 

is  not  required  of  anyone.  I  believe  you  will  not  only  be 
a  saint,  but  a  very  distinguished  one." 

At  these  words  Christina  brightened.  "You  give  me 
hope,  you  give  me  hope,"  she  cried,  and  dried  her  eyes. 
She  made  him  assure  her  over  and  over  again  that  this 
was  his  solemn  conviction;  she  did  not  care  about  being 
a  distinguished  saint  now ;  she  would  be  quite  content  to 
be  among  the  meanest  who  actually  got  into  heaven,  pro- 
vided she  could  make  sure  of  escaping  that  awful  Hell. 
The  fear  of  this  evidently  was  omnipresent  with  her,  and 
in  spite  of  all  Ernest  could  say  he  did  not  quite  dispel  it. 
She  was  rather  ungrateful,  I  must  confess,  for  after 
more  than  an  hour's  consolation  from  Ernest  she  prayed 
for  him  that  he  might  have  every  blessing  in  this  world, 
inasmuch  as  she  always  feared  that  he  was  the  only  one 
of  her  children  whom  she  should  never  meet  in  heaven ; 
but  she  was  then  wandering,  and  was  hardly  aware  of 
his  presence;  her  mind  in  fact  was  reverting  to  states 
in  which  it  had  been  before  her  illness. 

On  Sunday  Ernest  went  to  church  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  noted  that  the  ever  receding  tide  of  Evan- 
gelicalism had  ebbed  many  a  stage  lower,  even  during 
the  few  years  of  his  absence.  His  father  used  to  walk 
to  the  church  through  the  Rectory  garden,  and  across  a 
small  intervening  field.  He  had  been  used  to  walk  in 
a  tall  hat,  his  Master's  gown,  and  wearing  a  pair  of 
Geneva  bands.  Ernest  noticed  that  the  bands  were  worn 
no  longer,  and  lo !  greater  marvel  still,  Theobald  did  not 
preach  in  his  Master's  gown,  but  in  a  surplice.  The 
whole  character  of  the  service  was  changed;  you  could 
not  say  it  was  high  even  now,  for  high-church  Theobald 
could  never  under  any  circumstances  become,  but  the  old 
easy-going  slovenliness,  if  I  may  say  so,  was  gone  for 
ever.  The  orchestral  accompaniments  to  the  hymns  had 
disappeared  while  my  hero  was  yet  a  boy,  but  there 
had  been  no  chanting  for  some  years  after  the  har- 
monium had  been  introduced.  While  Ernest  was  at  Cam- 


432         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

bridge,  Charlotte  and  Christina  had  prevailed  on  Theo- 
bald to  allow  the  canticles  to  be  sung;  and  sung  they 
were  to  old-fashioned  double  chants  by  Lord  Morning- 
ton  and  Dr.  Dupuis  and  others.  Theobald  did  not  like 
it,  but  he  did  it,  or  allowed  it  to  be  done. 

f  Then  Christina  said :  "My  dear,  do  you  know,  I  really 
think"  (Christina  always  "really"  thought)  "that  the 
people  like  the  chanting  very  much,  and  that  it  will  be  a 
means  of  bringing  many  to  church  who  have  stayed 
away  hitherto.  I  was  talking  about  it  to  Mrs.  Goodhew 
and  to  old  Miss  Wright  only  yesterday,  and  they  quite 
agreed  with  me,  but  they  all  said  that  we  ought  to  chant 
the  'Glory  be  to  the  Father'  at  the  end  of  each  of  the 
psalms  instead  of  saying  it." 

Theobald  looked  black — he  felt  the  waters  of  chanting 
rising  higher  and  higher  upon  him  inch  by  inch;  but  he 
felt  also,  he  knew  not  why,  that  he  had  better  yield  than 
fight.  So  he  ordered  the  "Glory  be  to  the  Father"  to 
be  chanted  in  future,  but  he  did  not  like  it. 

"Really,  mamma  dear,"  said  Charlotte,  when  the  battle 
was  won,  "you  should  not  call  it  the  'Glory  be  to  the 
Father' — you  should  say  'Gloria.'  " 

"Of  course,  my  dear,"  said  Christina,  and  she  said 
"Gloria"  for  ever  after.  Then  she  thought  what  a  won- 
derfully clever  girl  Charlotte  was,  and  how  she  ought  to 
marry  no  one  lower  than  a  bishop.  By-and-by  when 
Theobald  went  away  for  an  unusually  long  holiday  one 
summer,  he  could  find  no  one  but  a  rather  high-church 
clergyman  to  take  his  duty.  This  gentleman  was  a  man 
of  weight  in  the  neighbourhood,  having  considerable 
private  means,  but  without  preferment.  In  the  summer 
he  would  often  help  his  brother  clergymen,  and  it  was 
through  his  being  willing  to  take  the  duty  at  Battersby 
for  a  few  Sundays  that  Theobald  had  been  able  to  get 
away  for  so  long.  On  his  return,  however,  he  found 
that  the  whole  psalms  were  being  chanted  as  well  as  the 
Glorias.  The  influential  clergyman,  Christina,  and  Char- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         433 

lotte  took  the  bull  by  the  horns  as  soon  as  Theobald 
returned,  and  laughed  it  all  off;  and  the  clergyman 
laughed  and  bounced,  and  Christina  laughed  and  coaxed, 
and  Charlotte  uttered  unexceptionable  sentiments,  and 
the  thing  was  done  now,  and  could  not  be  undone,  and 
it  was  no  use  grieving  over  spilt  milk ;  so  henceforth  the 
psalms  were  to  be  chanted,  but  Theobald  grisled  over 
it  in  his  heart,  and  he  did  not  like  it. 

During  this  same  absence  what  had  Mrs.  Goodhew 
and  old  Miss  Wright  taken  to  doing  but  turning  towards 
the  east  while  repeating  the  Belief?  Theobald  disliked 
this  even  worse  than  chanting.  When  he  said  something 
about  it  in  a  timid  way  at  dinner  after  service,  Charlotte 
said,  "Really,  papa  dear,  you  must  take  to  calling  it  the 
'Creed'  and  not  the  'Belief  " ;  and  Theobald  winced  im- 
patiently and  snorted  meek  defiance,  but  the  spirit  of  her 
aunts  Jane  and  Eliza  was  strong  in  Charlotte,  and  the 
thing  was  too  small  to  fight  about,  and  he  turned  it  off 
with  a  laugh.  "As  for  Charlotte,"  thought  Christina, 
"I  believe  she  knows  everything."  So  Mrs.  Goodhew 
and  old  Miss  Wright  continued  to  turn  to  the  east  during 
the  time  the  Creed  was  said,  and  by-and-by  others  fol- 
lowed their  example,  and  ere  long  the  few  who  had 
stood  out  yielded  and  turned  eastward  too;  and  then 
Theobald  made  as  though  he  had  thought  it  all  very 
right  and  proper  from  the  first,  but  like  it  he  did  not. 
By-and-by  Charlotte  tried  to  make  him  say  "Alleluia" 
instead  of  "Hallelujah,"  but  this  was  going  too  far,  and 
Theobald  turned,  and  she  got  frightened  and  ran  away. 

And  they  changed  the  double  chants  for  single  ones, 
and  altered  them  psalm  by  psalm,  and  in  the  middle  of 
psalms,  just  where  a  cursory  reader  would  see  no  reason 
why  they  should  do  so,  they  changed  from  major  to 
minor  and  from  minor  back  to  major;  and  then  they 
got  "Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern,"  and,  as  I  have  said, 
they  robbed  him  of  his  beloved  bands,  and  they  made 
him  preach  in  a  surplice,  and  he  must  have  celebration 


434         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

of  the  Holy  Communion  once  a  month  instead  of  only 
five  times  in  the  year  as  heretofore,  and  he  struggled  in 
vain  against  the  unseen  influence  which  he  felt  to  be 
working  in  season  and  out  of  season  against  all  that  he 
had  been  accustomed  to  consider  most  distinctive  of  his 
party.  Where  it  was,  or  what  it  was,  he  knew  not,  nor 
exactly  what  it  would  do  next,  but  he  knew  exceedingly 
well  that  go  where  he  would  it  was  undermining  him; 
that  it  was  too  persistent  for  him;  that  Christina  and 
Charlotte  liked  it  a  great  deal  better  than  he  did,  and 
that  it  could  end  in  nothing  but  Rome.  Easter  decora- 
tions indeed!  Christmas  decorations — in  reason — were 
proper  enough,  but  Easter  decorations !  well,  it  might  last 
his  time. 

This  was  the  course  things  had  taken  in  the  Church  of 
England  during  the  last  forty  years.  The  set  has  been 
steadily  in  one  direction.  A  few  men  who  knew  what 
they  wanted  made  catspaws  of  the  Christinas  and  the 
Charlottes,  and  the  Christinas  and  the  Charlottes  made 
catspaws  of  the  Mrs.  Goodhews  and  the  old  Miss 
Wrights,  and  the  Mrs.  Goodhews  and  old  Miss  Wrights 
told  the  Mr.  Goodhews  and  young  Miss  Wrights  what 
they  should  do,  and  when  the  Mr.  Goodhews  and  the 
young  Miss  Wrights  did  it  the  little  Goodhews  and  the 
rest  of  the  spiritual  flock  did  as  they  did,  and  the  Theo- 
balds went  for  nothing;  step  by  step,  day  by  day,  year 
by  year,  parish  by  parish,  diocese  by  diocese  this  was 
how  it  was  done.  And  yet  the  Church  of  England  looks 
with  no  friendly  eyes  upon  the  theory  of  Evolution  or 
Descent  with  Modification. 

My  hero  thought  over  these  things,  and  remembered 
many  a  ruse  on  the  part  of  Christina  and  Charlotte,  and 
many  a  detail  of  the  struggle  which  I  cannot  further 
interrupt  my  story  to  refer  to,  and  he  remembered  his 
father's  favourite  retort  that  it  could  only  end  in  Rome. 
When  he  was  a  boy  he  had  firmly  believed  this,  but  he 
smiled  now  as  he  thought  of  another  alternative  clear 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         435 

enough  to  himself,  but  so  horrible  that  it  had  not  even 
occurred  to  Theobald — I  mean  the  toppling  over  of  the 
whole  system.  At  that  time  he  welcomed  the  hope  that 
the  absurdities  and  unrealities  of  the  Church  would  end 
in  her  downfall.  Since  then  he  has  come  to  think  very 
differently,  not  as  believing  in  the  cow  jumping  over  the 
moon  more  than  he  used  to,  or  more,  probably,  than 
nine-tenths  of  the  clergy  themselves — who  know  as  well 
as  he  does  that  their  outward  and  visible  symbols  are 
out  of  date — but  because  he  knows  the  baffling  com- 
plexity of  the  problem  when  it  comes  to  deciding  what  is 
actually  to  be  done.  Also,  now  that  he  has  seen  them 
more  closely,  he  knows  better  the  nature  of  those  wolves 
in  sheep's  clothing,  who  are  thirsting  for  the  blood  of 
their  victim,  and  exulting  so  clamorously  over  its  an- 
ticipated early  fall  into  their  clutches.  The  spirit  behind 
the  Church  is  true,  though  her  letter — true  once — is 
now  true  no  longer.  The  spirit  behind  the  High  Priests 
of  Science  is  as  lying  as  its  letter.  The  Theobalds,  who 
do  what  they  do  because  it  seems  to  be  the  correct  thing, 
but  who  in  their  hearts  neither  like  it  nor  believe  in 
it,  are  in  reality  the  least  dangerous  of  all  classes  to  the 
peace  and  liberties  of  mankind.  The  man  to  fear  is  he 
who  goes  at  things  with  the  cocksureness  of  pushing  vul- 
garity and  self-conceit.  These  are  not  vices  which  can 
be  justly  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  English  clergy. 

Many  of  the  farmers  came  up  to  Ernest  when  serv- 
ice was  over,  and  shook  hands  with  him.  He  found  every 
one  knew  of  his  having  come  into  a  fortune.  The  fact 
was  that  Theobald  had  immediately  told  two  or  three  of 
the  greatest  gossips  in  the  village,  and  the  story  was  not 
long  in  spreading.  "It  simplified  matters,"  he  had  said 
to  himself,  "a  good  deal."  Ernest  was  civil  to  Mrs. 
Goodhew  for  her  husband's  sake,  but  he  gave  Miss 
Wright  the  cut  direct,  for  he  knew  that  she  was  only 
Charlotte  in  disguise. 

A  week  passed  slowly  away.    Two  or  three  times  the 


436         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

family  took  the  sacrament  together  round  Christina's 
death-bed.  Theobald's  impatience  became  more  and  more 
transparent  daily,  but  fortunately  Christina  (who  even  if 
she  had  been  well  would  have  been  ready  to  shut  her 
eyes  to  it)  became  weaker  and  less  coherent  in  mind 
also,  so  that  she  hardly,  if  at  all,  perceived  it.  After 
Ernest  had  been  in  the  house  about  a  week  his  mother 
fell  into  a  comatose  state  which  lasted  a  couple  of  days, 
and  in  the  end  went  away  so  peacefully  that  it  was  like 
the  blending  of  sea  and  sky  in  mid-ocean  upon  a  soft 
hazy  day  when  none  can  say  where  the  earth  ends  and 
the  heavens  begin.  Indeed  she  died  to  the  realities  of 
life  with  less  pain  than  she  had  waked  from  many  of 
its  illusions. 

"She  has  been  the  comfort  and  mainstay  of  my  life 
for  more  than  thirty  years,"  said  Theobald  as  soon  as  all 
was  over,  "but  one  could  not  wish  it  prolonged,"  and 
he  buried  his  face  in  his  handkerchief  to  conceal  his  want 
of  emotion. 

Ernest  came  back  to  town  the  day  after  his  mother's 
death,  and  returned  to  the  funeral  accompanied  by  my- 
self. He  wanted  me  to  see  his  father  in  order  to  prevent 
any  possible  misapprehension  about  Miss  Pontifex's  in- 
tentions, and  I  was  such  an  old  friend  of  the  family 
that  my  presence  at  Christina's  funeral  would  surprise 
no  one.  With  all  her  faults  I  had  always  rather  liked 
Christina.  She  would  have  chopped  Ernest  or  any  one 
else  into  little  pieces  of  mincemeat  to  gratify  the  slightest 
wish  of  her  husband,  but  she  would  not  have  chopped 
him  up  for  any  one  else,  and  so  long  as  he  did  not  cross 
her  she  was  very  fond  of  him.  By  nature  she  was  of  an 
even  temper,  more  willing  to  be  pleased  than  ruffled,  very 
ready  to  do  a  good-natured  action,  provided  it  did  not 
cost  her  much  exertion,  nor  involve  expense  to  Theobald. 
Her  own  little  purse  did  not  matter ;  any  one  might  have 
as  much  of  that  as  he  or  she  could  get  after  she  had 
reserved  what  was  absolutely  necessary  for  her  dress. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         437 

I  could  not  hear  of  her  end  as  Ernest  described  it  to  me 
without  feeling  very  compassionate  towards  her,  indeed 
her  own  son  could  hardly  have  felt  more  so;  I  at  once, 
therefore,  consented  to  go  down  to  the  funeral;  perhaps 
I  was  also  influenced  by  a  desire  to  see  Charlotte  and 
Joey,  in  whom  I  felt  interested  on  hearing  what  my  god- 
son had  told  me. 

I  found  Theobald  looking  remarkably  well.  Every  one 
said  he  was  bearing  it  so  beautifully.  He  did  indeed 
once  or  twice  shake  his  head  and  say  that  his  wife  had 
been  the  comfort  and  mainstay  of  his  life  for  over  thirty 
years,  but  there  the  matter  ended.  I  stayed  over  the  next 
day  which  was  Sunday,  and  took  my  departure  on  the 
following  morning  after  having  told  Theobald  all  that 
his  son  wished  me  to  tell  him.  Theobald  asked  me  to 
help  him  with  Christina's  epitaph. 

"I  would  say,"  said  he,  "as  little  as  possible;  eulogies 
of  the  departed  are  in  most  cases  both  unnecessary  and 
untrue.  Christina's  epitaph  shall  contain  nothing  which 
shall  be  either  the  one  or  the  other.  I  should  give  her 
name,  the  dates  of  her  birth  and  death,  and  of  course 
say  she  was  my  wife,  and  then  I  think  I  should  wind  up 
with  a  simple  text — her  favourite  one  for  example,  none 
indeed  could  be  more  appropriate,  'Blessed  are  the  pure 
in  heart  for  they  shall  see  God.'  " 

I  said  I  thought  this  would  be  very  nice,  and  it  was 
settled.  So  Ernest  was  sent  to  give  the  order  to  Mr. 
Prosser,  the  stonemason  in  the  nearest  town,  who  said 
it  came  from  "the  Beetitudes." 


CHAPTER  LXXXIV 


ON  our  way  to  town  Ernest  broached  his  plans  for  spend- 
ing the  next  year  or  two.  I  wanted  him  to  try  and  get 
more  into  society  again,  but  he  brushed  this  aside  at 


438         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

once  as  the  very  last  thing  he  had  a  fancy  for.     For 
society  indeed  of  all  sorts,  except  of  course  that  of  a 
few  intimate  friends,  he  had  an  unconquerable  aversion. 
"I  always  did  hate  those  people,"  he  said,  "and  they 
always  have  hated  and  always  will  hate  me.     I  am  an 
Ishmael  by  instinct  as  much  as  by  accident  of  circum- 
stances, but  if   I  keep  out  of  society   I   shall   be  less 
vulnerable  than  Ishmaels  generally  are.     The   moment  i 
a    man   goes   into   society,    he  becomes   vulnerable   all! 
round." 

I  was  very  sorry  to  hear  him  talk  in  this  way;  for 
whatever  strength  a  man  may  have  he  should  surely  be 
able  to  make  more  of  it  if  he  act  in  concert  than  alone. 
I  said  this. 

"I  don't  care,"  he  answered,  "whether  I  make  the 
most  of  my  strength  or  not;  I  don't  know  whether  I 
have  any  strength,  but  if  I  have  I  dare  say  it  will  find 
some  way  of  exerting  itself.  I  will  live  as  I  like  living, 
not  as  other  people  would  like  me  to  live ;  thanks  to  my 
aunt  and  you,  I  can  afford  the  luxury  of  a  quiet,  unob- 
trusive life  of  self-indulgence,"  said  he  laughing,  "and  I 
mean  to  have  it.  You  know  I  like  writing,"  he  added 
after  a  pause  of  some  minutes ;  "I  have  been  a  scribbler 
for  years.  If  I  am  to  come  to  the  fore  at  all  it  must  be 
by  writing." 

I  had  already  long  since  come  to  that  conclusion  my- 
self. 

"Well,"  he  continued,  "there  are  a  lot  of  things  that 
want  saying  which  no  one  dares  to  say,  a  lot  of  shams 
which  want  attacking,  and  yet  no  one  attacks  them.  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  can  say  things  which  not  another 
man  in  England  except  myself  will  venture  to  say,  and 
yet  which  are  crying  to  be  said." 

I  said  :  "But  who  will  listen  ?  If  you  say  things  which 
nobody  else  would  dare  to  say,  is  not  this  much  the  same 
as  saying  what  everyone  except  yourself  knows  to  be 
better  left  unsaid  just  now?" 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         439 

"Perhaps,"  said  he,  "but  I  don't  know  it ;  I  am  bursting 
with  these  things,  and  it  is  my  fate  to  say  them." 

I  knew  there  would  be  no  stopping  him,  so  I  gave  in 
and  asked  what  question  he  felt  a  special  desire  to  burn 
his  fingers  with  in  the  first  instance. 

"Marriage,"  he  rejoined  promptly,  "and  the  power  of 
disposing  of  his  property  after  a  man  is  dead.  The  ques- 
tion of  Christianity  is  virtually  settled,  or  if  not  settled 
there  is  no  lack  of  those  engaged  in  settling  it.  The 
question  of  the  day  now  is  marriage  and  the  family 
system." 

"That,"  said  I  drily,  "is  a  hornet's  nest  indeed." 

"Yes,"  said  he  no  less  drily,  "but  hornet's  nests  are 
exactly  what  I  happen  to  like.  Before,  however,  I  begin 
to  stir  up  this  particular  one  I  propose  to  travel  for  a 
few  years,  with  the  especial  object  of  finding  out  what 
nations  now  existing  are  the  best,  comeliest  and  most 
lovable,  and  also  what  nations  have  been  so  in  times 
past.  I  want  to  find  out  how  these  people  live,  and  have 
lived,  and  what  their  customs  are. 

"I  have  very  vague  notions  upon  the  subject  as  yet, 
but  the  general  impression  I  have  formed  is  that,  putting 
ourselves  on  one  side,  the  most  vigorous  and  amiable  of 
known  nations  are  the  modern  Italians,  the  old  Greeks 
and  Romans,  and  the  South  Sea  Islanders.  I  believe 
that  these  nice  peoples  have  not  as  a  general  rule  been 
purists,  but  I  want  to  see  those  of  them  who  can  yet  be 
seen ;  they  are  the  practical  authorities  on  the  question — 
What  is  best  for  man  ?  and  I  should  like  to  see  them  and 
find  out  what  they  do.  Let  us  settle  the  fact  first  and 
fight  about  the  moral  tendencies  afterwards." 

"In  fact,"  said  I  laughingly,  "you  mean  to  have  high 
old  times." 

"Neither  higher  nor  lower,"  was  the  answer,  "than 
those  people  whom  I  can  find  to  have  been  the  best  in 
all  ages.  But  let  us  change  the  subject."  He  put  his 
hand  into  his  pocket  and  brought  out  a  letter,  "My 


440         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

father,"  he  said,  "gave  me  this  letter  this  morning  with 
the  seal  already  broken."  He  passed  it  over  to  me,  and 
I  found  it  to  be  the  one  which  Christina  had  written 
before  the  birth  of  her  last  child,  and  which  I  have  given 
in  an  earlier  chapter. 

"And  you  do  not  find  this  letter,"  said  I,  "affects  the 
conclusion  which  you  have  just  told  me  you  have  come 
to  concerning  your  present  plans?" 

He  smiled,  and  answered :  "No.  But  if  you  do  what 
you  have  sometimes  talked  about  and  turn  the  adventures 
of  my  unworthy  self  into  a  novel,  mind  you  print  this 
letter." 

"Why  so?"  said  I,  feeling  as  though  such  a  letter  as 
this  should  have  been  held  sacred  from  the  public  gaze. 

"Because  my  mother  would  have  wished  it  published ; 
if  she  had  known  you  were  writing  about  me  and  had 
this  letter  in  your  possession,  she  would  above  all  things 
have  desired  that  you  should  publish  it.  Therefore  pub- 
lish it  if  you  write  at  all." 

This  is  why  I  have  done  so. 

Within  a  month  Ernest  carried  his  intention  into  effect, 
and  having  made  all  the  arrangements  necessary  for  his 
children's  welfare,  left  England  before  Christmas. 

I  heard  from  him  now  and  again  and  learnt  that  he 
was  visiting  almost  all  parts  of  the  world,  but  only  stay- 
ing in  those  places  where  he  found  the  inhabitants  un- 
usually good-looking  and  agreeable.  He  said  he  had  filled 
an  immense  quantity  of  note-books,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
he  had.  At  last  in  the  spring  of  1867  he  returned,  his 
luggage  stained  with  the  variation  of  each  hotel  adver- 
tisement 'twixt  here  and  Japan.  He  looked  very  brown 
and  strong,  and  so  well  favoured  that  it  almost  seemed 
as  if  he  must  have  caught  some  good  looks  from  the 
people  among  whom  he  had  been  living.  He  came  back 
to  his  old  rooms  in  the  Temple,  and  settled  down  as 
easily  as  if  he  had  never  been  away  a  day. 

One  of  the  first  things  we  did  was  to  go  and  see  the 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         441 

children ;  we  took'  the  train  to  Gravesend,  and  walked 
thence  for  a  few  miles  along  the  riverside  till  we  came  to 
the  solitary  house  where  the  good  people  lived  with  whom 
Ernest  had  placed  them.  It  was  a  lovely  April  morning, 
but  with  a  fresh  air  blowing  from  off  the  sea;  the  tide 
was  high,  and  the  river  was  alive  with  shipping  coming 
up  with  wind  and  tide.  Sea-gulls  wheeled  around  us 
overhead,  sea-weed  clung  everywhere  to  the  banks  which 
the  advancing  tide  had  not  yet  covered,  everything  was 
of  the  sea  sea-ey,  and  the  fine  bracing  air  which  blew 
over  the  water  made  me  feel  more  hungry  than  I  had 
done  for  many  a  day;  I  did  not  see  how  children  could 
live  in  a  better  physical  atmosphere  than  this,  and  ap- 
plauded the  selection  which  Ernest  had  made  on  behalf 
of  his  youngsters. 

While  we  were  still  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off  we  heard 
shouts  and  children's  laughter,  and  could  see  a  lot  of  boys 
and  girls  romping  together  and  running  after  one  an- 
other. We  could  not  distinguish  our  own  two,  but  when 
we  got  near  they  were  soon  made  out,  for  the  other  chil- 
dren were  blue-eyed,  flaxen-pated  little  folks,  whereas 
ours  were  dark  and  straight-haired. 

We  had  written  to  say  that  we  were  coming,  but  had 
desired  that  nothing  should  be  said  to  the  children,  so 
these  paid  no  more  attention  to  us  than  they  would  have 
done  to  any  other  stranger,  who  happened  to  visit  a  spot 
so  unfrequented  except  by  sea-faring  folk,  which  we 
plainly  were  not.  The  interest,  however,  in  us  was  much 
quickened  when  it  was  discovered  that  we  had  got  our 
pockets  full  of  oranges  and  sweeties,  to  an  extent  greater 
than  it  had  entered  into  their  small  imaginations  to 
conceive  as  possible.  At  first  we  had  great  difficulty  in 
making  them  come  near  us.  They  were  like  a  lot  of 
wild  young  colts,  very  inquisitive,  but  very  coy  and  not 
to  be  cajoled  easily.  The  children  were  nine  in  all — 
five  boys  and  two  girls  belonging  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Roll- 
ings, and  two  to  Ernest.  I  never  saw  a  finer  lot  of 


442         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

children  than  the  young  Rollings — the  boys  were  hardy, 
robust,  fearless  little  fellows  with  eyes  as  clear  as  hawks ; 
the  elder  girl  was  exquisitely  pretty,  but  the  younger 
one  was  a  mere  baby.  I  felt  as  I  looked  at  them  that 
if  I  had  had  children  of  my  own  I  could  have  wished 
no  better  home  for  them,  nor  better  companions. 

Georgie  and  Alice,  Ernest's  two  children,  were  evi- 
dently quite  as  one  family  with  the  others,  and  called 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rollings  uncle  and  aunt.  They  had  been 
so  young  when  they  were  first  brought  to  the  house  that 
they  had  been  looked  upon  in  the  light  of  new  babies 
who  had  been  born  into  the  family.  They  knew  nothing 
about  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rollings  being  paid  so  much  a  week 
to  look  after  them.  Ernest  asked  them  all  what  they 
wanted  to  be.  They  had  only  one  idea;  one  and  all, 
Georgie  among  the  rest,  wanted  to  be  bargemen.  Young 
ducks  could  hardly  have  a  more  evident  hankering  after 
the  water. 

"And  what  do  you  want,  Alice?"  said  Ernest. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "I'm  going  to  marry  Jack  here,  and  be 
a  bargeman's  wife." 

Jack  was  the  eldest  boy,  now  nearly  twelve,  a  sturdy 
little  fellow,  the  image  of  what  Mr.  Rollings  must  have 
been  at  his  age.  As  we  looked  at  him,  so  straight  and 
well  grown  and  well  done  all  round,  I  could  see  it  was 
in  Ernest's  mind  as  much  as  in  mine  that  she  could 
hardly  do  much  better. 

"Come  here,  Jack,  my  boy,"  said  Ernest,  "here's  a 
shilling  for  you."  The  boy  blushed  and  could  hardly  be 
got  to  come  in  spite  of  our  previous  blandishments;  he 
had  had  pennies  given  him  before,  but  shillings  never. 
His  father  caught  him  good-naturedly  by  the  ear  and 
lugged  him  to  us. 

"He's  a  good  boy,  Jack  is,"  said  Ernest  to  Mr. 
Rollings,  "I'm  sure  of  that." 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Rollings,  "he's  a  werry  good  boy, 
only  that  I  can't  get  him  to  learn  his  reading  and  writing. 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         443 

He  don't  like  going  to  school — that's  the  only  complaint 
I  have  against  him.  I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with 
all  my  children,  and  yours,  Mr.  Pontifex,  is  just  as  bad, 
but  they  none  of  'em  likes  book  learning,  though  they 
learn  anything  else  fast  enough.  Why,  as  for  Jack  here, 
he's  almost  as  good  a  bargeman  as  I  am."  And  he 
looked  fondly  and  patronisingly  towards  his  offspring. 

"I  think,"  said  Ernest  to  Mr.  Rollings,  "if  he  wants  to 
marry  Alice  when  he  gets  older  he  had  better  do  so,  and 
he  shall  have  as  many  barges  as  he  likes.  In  the  mean- 
time, Mr.  Rollings,  say  in  what  way  money  can  be  of 
use  to  you,  and  whatever  you  can  make  useful  is  at  your 
disposal." 

I  need  hardly  say  that  Ernest  made  matters  easy  for 
this  good  couple ;  one  stipulation,  however,  he  insisted 
on,  namely,  there  was  to  be  no  more  smuggling,  and  that 
the  young  people  were  to  be  kept  out  of  this ;  for  a  little 
bird  had  told  Ernest  that  smuggling  in  a  quiet  way  was 
one  of  the  resources  of  the  Rollings  family.  Mr.  Rollings 
was  not  sorry  to  assent  to  this,  and  I  believe  it  is  now 
many  years  since  the  coastguard  people  have  suspected 
any  of  the  Rollings  family  as  offenders  against  the 
revenue  law. 

"Why  should  I  take  them  from  where  they  are,"  said 
Ernest  to  me  in  the  train  as  we  went  home,  "to  send 
them  to  schools  where  they  will  not  be  one  half  so  happy, 
and  where  their  illegitimacy  will  very  likely  be  a  worry 
to  them  ?  Georgie  wants  to  be  a  bargeman,  let  him  begin 
as  one,  the  sooner  the  better ;  he  may  as  well  begin  with 
this  as  with  anything  else ;  then  if  he  shows  developments 
I  can  be  on  the  lookout  to  encourage  them  and  make 
things  easy  for  him ;  while  if  he  shows  no  desire  to  go 
ahead,  what  on  earth  is  "the  good  of  trying  to  shove  him 
forward  ?" 

Ernest,  I  believe,  went  on  with  a  homily  upon  educa- 
tion generally,  and  upon  the  way  in  which  young  people 
should  go  through  the  embryonic  stages  with  their  money 


444         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

as  much  as  with  their  limbs,  beginning  life  in  a  much 
lower  social  position  than  that  in  which  their  parents 
were,  and  a  lot  more,  which  he  has  since  published ;  but 
I  was  getting  on  in  years,  and  the  walk  and  the  bracing 
air  had  made  me  sleepy,  so  ere  we  had  got  past  Green- 
hithe  Station  on  our  return  journey  I  had  sunk  into  a 
refreshing  sleep. 


CHAPTER  LXXXV 

ERNEST  being  about  two  and  thirty  years  old  and  having 
had  his  fling  for  the  last  three  or  four  years,  now  settled 
down  in  London,  and  began  to  write  steadily.  Up  to  this 
time  he  had  given  abundant  promise,  but  had  produced 
nothing,  nor  indeed  did  he  come  before  the  public  for 
another  three  or  four  years  yet. 

He  lived  as  I  have  said  very  quietly,  seeing  hardly 
anyone  but  myself,  and  the  three  or  four  old  friends  with 
whom  I  had  been  intimate  for  years.  Ernest  and  we 
formed  our  little  set,  and  outside  of  this  my  godson  was 
hardly  known  at  all. 

His  main  expense  was  travelling,  which  he  indulged 
in  at  frequent  intervals,  but  for  short  times  only.  Do 
what  he  would  he  could  not  get  through  more  than  about 
fifteen  hundred  a  year;  the  rest  of  his  income  he  gave 
away  if  he  happened  to  find  a  case  where  he  thought 
money  would  be  well  bestowed,  or  put  by  until  some 
opportunity  arose  of  getting  rid  of  it  with  advantage. 

I  knew  he  was  writing,  but  we  had  had  so  many  little 
differences  of  opinion  upon  this  head  that  by  a  tacit 
understanding  the  subject  was  seldom  referred  to  be- 
tween us,  and  I  did  not  know  that  he  was  actually 
publishing  till  one  day  he  brought  me  a  book  and  told 
me  that  it  was  his  own.  I  opened  it  and  found  it  to 
be  a  series  of  semi-theological,  semi-social  essays,  pur- 
porting to  have  been  written  by  six  or  seven  different 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         445 

people,  and  viewing  the  same  class  of  subjects  from 
different  standpoints. 

People  had  not  yet  forgotten  the  famous  "Essays  and 
Reviews,"  and  Ernest  had  wickedly  given  a  few  touches 
to  at  least  two  of  the  essays  which  suggested  vaguely 
that  they  had  been  written  by  a  bishop.  The  essays  were 
all  of  them  in  support  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
appeared  both  by  implied  internal  suggestion,  and  their 
prima  facie  purport  to  be  the  work  of  some  half-dozen 
men  of  experience  and  high  position  who  had  determined 
to  face  the  difficult  questions  of  the  day  no  less  boldly 
from  within  the  bosom  of  the  Church  than  the  Church's 
enemies  had  faced  them  from  without  her  pale. 

There  was  an  essay  on  the  external  evidences  of  the 
Resurrection;  another  on  the  marriage  laws  of  the  most 
eminent  nations  of  the  world  in  times  past  and  present; 
another  was  devoted  to  a  consideration  of  the  many 
questions  which  must  be  reopened  and  reconsidered  on 
their  merits  if  the  teaching  of  the  Church  of  England 
were  to  cease  to  carry  moral  authority  with  it;  another 
dealt  with  the  more  purely  social  subject  of  middle  class 
destitution ;  another  with  the  authenticity  or  rather  the 
unauthenticity  of  the  fourth  gospel;  another  was  headed 
"Irrational  Rationalism,"  and  there  were  two  or  three 
more. 

They  were  all  written  vigorously  and  fearlessly  as 
though  by  people  used  to  authority;  all  granted  that  the 
Church  professed  to  enjoin  belief  in  much  which  no  one 
could  accept  who  had  been  accustomed  to  weigh  evi- 
dence ;  but  it  was  contended  that  so  much  valuable  truth 
had  got  so  closely  mixed  up  with  these  mistakes  that  the 
mistakes  had  better  not  be  meddled  with.  To  lay  great 
stress  on  these  was  like  cavilling  at  the  Queen's  right  to 
reign,  on  the  ground  that  William  the  Conqueror  was 
illegitimate. 

One  article  maintained  that  though  it  would  be  incon- 
venient to  change  the  words  of  our  prayer  book  and 


446         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

articles,  it  would  not  be  inconvenient  to  change  in  a  quiet 
way  the  meanings  which  we  put  upon  those  words.  This, 
it  was  argued,  was  what  was  actually  done  in  the  case  of 
law ;  this  had  been  the  law's  mode  of  growth  and  adapta- 
tion, and  had  in  all  ages  been  found  a  righteous  and  con- 
venient method  of  effecting  change.  It  was  suggested 
that  the  Church  should  adopt  it. 

In  another  essay  it  was  boldly  denied  that  the  Church 
rested  upon  reason.  It  was  proved  incontestably  that  its 
ultimate  foundation  was  and  ought  to  be  faith,  there 
being  indeed  no  other  ultimate  foundation  than  this  for 
any  of  man's  beliefs.  If  so,  the  writer  claimed  that  the 
Church  could  not  be  upset  by  reason.  It  was  founded, 
like  everything  else,  on  initial  assumptions,  that  is  to  say 
on  faith?  and  if  it  was  to  be  upset  it  was  to  be  upset  by 
faith,  by  the  faith  of  those  who  in  their  lives  appeared 
more  graceful,  more  lovable,  better  bred,  in  fact,  and 
better  able  to  overcome  difficulties.  Any  sect  which 
showed  its  superiority  in  these  respects  might  carry  all 
before  it,  but  none  other  would  make  much  headway 
for  long  together.  Christianity  was  true  in  so  far  as  it  \ 
had  fostered  beauty,  and  it  had  fostered  much  beauty.  ) 
It  was  false  in  so  far  as  it  fostered  ugliness,  and  it  had  • 
fostered  much  ugliness.  It  was  therefore  not  a  little  i 
true  and  not  a  little  false ;  on  the  whole  one  might  go  ' 
farther  and  fare  worse;  the  wisest  course  would  be  to 
live  with  it,  and  make  the  best  and  not  the  worst  of  it. 
The  writer  urged  that  we  become  persecutors  as  a  matter 
of  course  as  soon  as  we  begin  to  feel  very  strongly  upon 
any  subject ;  we  ought  not  therefore  to  do  this ;  we  ought 
not  to  feel  very  strongly  even  upon  that  institution  which 
was  dearer  to  the  writer  than  any  other — the  Church  of 
England.  We  should  Be  churchmen,  but  somewhat  luke- 
warm churchmen,  inasmuch  as  those  who  care  very  much 
about  either  religion  or  irreligion  are  seldom  observed 
to  be  very  well  bred  or  agreeable  people.  The  Church 
herself  should  approach  as  nearly  to  that  of  Laodicea  as 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         447 

was  compatible  with  her  continuing  to  be  a  Church  at  all, 
and  each  individual  member  should  only  be  hot  in  striving 
to  be  as  lukewarm  as  possible. 

The  book  rang  with  the  courage  alike  of  conviction 
and  of  an  entire  absence  of  conviction ;  it  appeared  to  be 
the  work  of  men  who  had  a  rule-of -thumb  way  of  steer- 
ing between  iconoclasm  on  the  one  hand  and  credulity  on 
the  other;  who  cut  Gordian  knots  as  a  matter  of  course 
when  it  suited  their  convenience;  who  shrank  from  no 
conclusion  in  theory,  nor  from  any  want  of  logic  in 
practice  so  long  as  they  were  illogical  of  malice  prepense, 
and  for  what  they  held  to  be  sufficient  reason.  The  con- 
clusions were  conservative,  quietistic,  comforting.  The 
arguments  by  which  they  were  reached  were  taken  from 
the  most  advanced  writers  of  the  day.  All  that  these 
people  contended  for  was  granted  them,  but  the  fruits 
of  victory  were  for  the  most  part  handed  over  to  those 
already  in  possession. 

Perhaps  the  passage  which  attracted  most  attention  in 
the  book  was  one  from  the  essay  on  the  various  marriage 
systems  of  the  world.  It  ran : — 

"If  people  require  us  to  construct,"  exclaimed  the 
writer,  "we  set  good  breeding  as  the  corner-stone  of  our 
edifice.  We  would  have  it  ever  present  consciously  or 
unconsciously  in  the  minds  of  all  as  the  central  faith  in 
which  they  should  live  and  move  and  have  their  being, 
as  the  touchstone  of  all  things  whereby  they  may  be 
known  as  good  or  evil  according  as  they  make  for  good 
breeding  or  against  it. 

"That  a  man  should  have  been  bred  well  and  breed 
others  well ;  that  his  figure,  head,  hands,  feet,  voice,  man- 
ner and  clothes  should  carry  conviction  upon  this  point, 
so  that  no  one  can  look  at  him  without  seeing  that  he  has 
come  of  good  stock  and  is  likely  to  throw  good  stock 
himself,  this  is  the  desiderandum.  And  the  same  with 
a  woman.  The  greatest  number  of  these  well-bred  men 
and  women,  and  the  greatest  happiness  of  these  well- 


448         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

bred  men  and  women,  this  is  the  highest  good ;  towards 
this  all  government,  all  social  conventions,  all  art,  litera- 
ture and  science  should  directly  or  indirectly  tend.  Holy 
men  and  holy  women  are  those  who  keep  this  uncon- 
sciously in  view  at  all  times  whether  of  work  or  pastime." 

If  Ernest  had  published  this  work  in  his  own  name  I 
should  think  it  would  have  fallen  still-born  from  the 
press,  but  the  form  he  had  chosen  was  calculated  at  that 
time  to  arouse  curiosity,  and  as  I  have  said  he  had 
wickedly  dropped  a  few  hints  which  the  reviewers  did 
not  think  anyone  would  have  been  impudent  enough  to 
do  if  he  were  not  a  bishop,  or  at  any  rate  some  one  in 
authority.  A  well-known  judge  was  spoken  of  as  being 
another  of  the  writers,  and  the  idea  spread  ere  long  that 
six  or  seven  of  the  leading  bishops  and  judges  had  laid 
their  heads  together  to  produce  a  volume,  which  should 
at  once  outbid  "Essays  and  Reviews"  and  counteract  the 
influence  of  that  then  still  famous  work. 

Reviewers  are  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves, 
and  with  them  as  with  everyone  else  omne  ignotum  pro 
magnifico.  The  book  was  really  an  able  one  and 
abounded  with  humour,  just  satire,  and  good  sense.  It 
struck  a  new  note,  and  the  speculation  which  for  some 
time  was  rife  concerning  its  authorship  made  many  turn 
to  it  who  would  never  have  looked  at  it  otherwise.  One 
of  the  most  gushing  weeklies  had  a  fit  over  it,  and  de- 
clared it  to  be  the  finest  thing  that  had  been  done  since 
the  "Provincial  Letters"  of  Pascal.  Once  a  month  or  so 
that  weekly  always  found  some  picture  which  was  the 
finest  that  had  been  done  since  the  old  masters,  or  some 
satire  that  was  the  finest  that  had  appeared  since  Swift 
or  some  something  which  was  incomparably  the  finest 
that  had  appeared  since  something  else.  If  Ernest  had 
put  his  name  to  the  book,  and  the  writer  had  known  that 
it  was  by  a  nobody,  he  would  doubtless  have  written  in 
a  very  different  strain.  Reviewers  like  to  think  that 
for  aught  they  know  they  are  patting  a  duke  or  even  a 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         449 

prince  of  the  blood  upon  the  back,  and  lay  it  on  thick 
till  they  find  they  have  been  only  praising  Brown,  Jones 
or  Robinson.  Then  they  are  disappointed,  and  as  a 
general  rule  will  pay  Brown,  Jones  or  Robinson  out. 

Ernest  was  not  so  much  up  to  the  ropes  of  the  literary 
world  as  I  was,  and  I  am  afraid  his  head  was  a  little 
turned  when  he  woke  up  one  morning  to  find  himself 
famous.  He  was  Christina's  son,  and  perhaps  would  not 
have  been  able  to  do  what  he  had  done  if  he  was  not 
capable  of  occasional  undue  elation.  Ere  long,  however, 
he  found  out  all  about  it,  and  settled  quietly  down  to 
write  a  series  of  books,  in  which  he  insisted  on  saying 
things  which  no  one  else  would  say  even  if  they  could, 
or  could  even  if  they  would. 

He  has  got  himself  a  bad  literary  character.  I  said 
to  him  laughingly  one  day  that  he  was  like  the  man  in 
the  last  century  of  whom  it  was  said  that  nothing  but 
such  a  character  could  keep  down  such  parts. 

He  laughed  and  said  he  would  rather  be  like  that  than 
like  a  modern  writer  or  two  whom  he  could  name,  whose 
parts  were  so  poor  that  they  could  be  kept  up  by  nothing 
but  by  such  a  character. 

I  remember  soon  after  one  of  these  books  was  pub- 
lished I  happened  to  meet  Mrs.  Jupp  to  whom,  by  the 
way,  Ernest  made  a  small  weekly  allowance.  It  was  at 
Ernest's  chambers,  and  for  some  reason  we  were  left 
alone  for  a  few  minutes.  I  said  to  her :  "Mr.  Pontif ex 
has  written  another  book,  Mrs.  Jupp." 

"Lor'  now,"  said  she,  "has  he  really  ?  Dear  gentleman ! 
Is  it  about  love  ?"  And  the  old  sinner  threw  up  a  wicked 
sheep's  eye  glance  at  me  from  under  her  aged  eyelids. 
I  forget  what  there  was  in  my  reply  which  provoked  it — 
probably  nothing — but  she  went  rattling  on  at  full  speed 
to  the  effect  that  Bell  had  given  her  a  ticket  for  the  opera. 
"So,  of  course,"  she  said,  "I  went.  I  didn't  understand 
one  word  of  it,  for  it  was  all  French,  but  I  saw  their  legs. 
Oh  dear,  oh  dear!  I'm  afraid  I  shan't  be  here  much 


450         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

longer,  and  when  dear  Mr.  Pontifex  sees  me  in  my  coffin 
he'll  say,  Toor  old  Jupp,  she'll  never  talk  broad  any 
more' ;  but  bless  you  I'm  not  so  old  as  all  that,  and  I'm 
taking  lessons  in  dancing." 

At  this  moment  Ernest  came  in  and  the  conversation 
was  changed.  Mrs.  Jupp  asked  if  he  was 'still  going  on 
writing  more  books  now  that  this  one  was  done.  "Of 
course  I  am,"  he  answered ;  "I'm  always  writing  books ; 
here  is  the  manuscript  of  my  text";  and  he  showed  her 
a  heap  of  paper. 

"Well  now,"  she  exclaimed,  "dear,  dear  me,  and  is  that 
manuscript?  I've  often  heard  talk  about  manuscripts, 
but  I  never  thought  I  should  live  to  see  some  myself. 
Well!  well!  So  that  is  really  manuscript?'' 

There  were  a  few  geraniums  in  the  window  and  they 
did  not  look  well.  Ernest  asked  Mrs.  Jupp  if  she  under- 
stood flowers.  "I  understand  the  language  of  flowers," 
she  said,  with  one  of  her  most  bewitching  leers,  and  on 
this  we  sent  her  off  till  she  should  choose  to  honour  us 
with  another  visit,  which  she  knows  she  is  privileged 
from  time  to  time  to  do,  for  Ernest  likes  her. 


CHAPTER  LXXXVI 

AND  now  I  must  bring  my  story  to  a  close. 

The  preceding  chapter  was  written  soon  after  the 
events  it  records — that  is  to  say  in  the  spring  of  1867. 
By  that  time  ^iiy  story  had  been  written  up  to  this  point ; 
but  it  has  been  altered  here  and  there  from  time  to  time 
occasionally.  It  is  now  the  autumn  of  1882,  and  if  I  am 
to  say  more  I  should  do  so  quickly,  for  I  am  eighty  years 
old  and  though  well  in  health  cannot  conceal  from  myself 
that  I  am  no  longer  young.  Ernest  himself  is  forty- 
seven,  though  he  hardly  looks  it. 

He  is  richer  than  ever,  for  he  has  never  married  and 
his  London  and  North- Western  shares  have  nearly 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         451 

doubled  themselves.  Through  sheer  inability  to  spend 
his  income  he  has  been  obliged  to  hoard  in  self-defence. 
He  still  lives  in  the  Temple  in  the  same  rooms  I  took 
for  him  when  he  gave  up  his  shop,  for  no  one  has  been 
able  to  induce  him  to  take  a  house.  His  house,  he  says, 
is  wherever  there  is  a  good  hotel.  When  he  is  in  town 
he  likes  to  work  and  to  be  quiet.  When  out  of  town 
he  feels  that  he  has  left  little  behind  him  that  can  go 
wrong,  and  he  would  not  like  to  be  tied  to  a  single 
locality.  "I  know  no  exception,"  he  says,  "to  the  rule 
that  it  is  cheaper  to  buy  milk  than  to  keep  a  cow." 

As  I  have  mentioned  Mrs.  Jupp,  I  may  as  well  say 
here  the  little  that  remains  to  be  said  about  her.  She 
is  a  very  old  woman  now,  but  no  one  now  living,  as  she 
says  triumphantly,  can  say  how  old,  for  the  woman  in  the 
Old  Kent  Road  is  dead,  and  presumably  has  carried  her 
secret  to  the  grave.  Old,  however,  though  she  is,  she 
lives  in  the  same  house,  and  finds  it  hard  work  to  make 
the  two  ends  meet,  but  I  do  not  know  that  she  minds 
this  very  much,  and  it  has  prevented  her  from  getting 
more  to  drink  than  would  be  good  for  her.  It  is  no  use 
trying  to  do  anything  for  her  beyond  paying  her  allow- 
ance weekly,  and  absolutely  refusing  to  let  her  anticipate 
it.  She  pawns  her  flat  iron  every  Saturday  for  4d.,  and 
takes  it  out  every  Monday  morning  for  4^d.  when  she 
gets  her  allowance,  and  has  done  this  for  the  last  ten 
years  as  regularly  as  the  week  comes  round.  As  long  as 
she  does  not  let  the  flat  iron  actually  go  we  know  that 
she  can  still  worry  out  her  financial  problems  in  her  own 
hugger-mugger  way  and  had  better  be  left  to  do  so.  If 
the  flat  iron  were  to  go  beyond  redemption,  we  should 
know  that  it  was  time  to  interfere.  I  do  not  know  why, 
but  there  is  something  about  her  which  always  reminds 
me  of  a  woman  who  was  as  unlike  her  as  one  person 
can  be  to  another — I  mean  Ernest's  mother. 

The  last  time  I  had  a  long  gossip  with  her  was  about 
two  years  ago  when  she  came  to  me  instead  of  to  Ernest. 


452         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

She  said  she  had  seen  a  cab  drive  up  just  as  she  was 
going  to  enter  the  staircase,  and  had  seen  Mr.  Pontifex's 
pa  put  his  Beelzebub  old  head  out  of  the  window,  so 
she  had  come  on  to  me,  for  she  hadn't  greased  her  sides 
for  no  curtsey,  not  for  the  likes  of  him.  She  professed  to 
be  very  much  down  on  her  luck.  Her  lodgers  did  use 
her  so  dreadful,  going  away  without  paying  and  leaving 
not  so  much  as  a  stick  behind,  but  to-day  she  was  as 
pleased  as  a  penny  carrot.  She  had  had  such  a  lovely 
dinner — a  cushion  of  ham  and  green  peas.  She  had  had 
a  good  cry  over  it,  but  then  she  was  so  silly,  she  was. 

"And  there's  that  Bell,"  she  continued,  though  I  could 
not  detect  any  appearance  of  connection,  "it's  enough  to 
give  anyone  the  hump  to  see  him  now  that  he's  taken  to 
chapel-going,  and  his  mother's  prepared  to  meet  Jesus 
and  all  that  to  me,  and  now  she  ain't  a-going  to  die,  and 
drinks  half  a  bottle  of  champagne  a  day,  and  then  Grigg, 
him  as  preaches,  you  know,  asked  Bell  if  I  really  was 
too  gay,  not  but  what  when  I  was  young  I'd  snap  my 
fingers  at  any  'fly  by  night'  in  Holborn,  and  if  I  was 
togged  out  and  had  my  teeth  I'd  do  it  now.  I  lost  my 
poor  dear  Watkins,  but  of  course  that  couldn't  be  helped, 
and  then  I  lost  my  dear  Rose.  Silly  faggot  to  go  and 
ride  on  a  cart  and  catch  the  bronchitics.  I  never  thought 
when  I  kissed  my  dear  Rose  in  Pullen's  Passage  and  she 
gave  me  the  chop,  that  I  should  never  see  her  again, 
and  her  gentleman  friend  was  fond  of  her  too,  though 
he  was  a  married  man.  I  daresay  she's  gone  to  bits  by 
now.  If  she  could  rise  and  see  me  with  my  bad  finger, 
she  would  cry,  and  I  should  say,  'Never  mind,  ducky, 
I'm  all  right.'  Oh !  dear,  it's  coming  on  to  rain.  I  do 
hate  a  wet  Saturday  night — poor  women  with  their  nice 
white  stockings  and  their  living  to  get,"  etc.,  etc. 

And  yet  age  does  not  wither  this  godless  old  sinner, 
as  people  would  say  it  ought  to  do.  Whatever  life  she 
has  led,  it  has  agreed  with  her  very  sufficiently.  At  times 
she  gives  us  to  understand  that  she  is  still  much  solicited ; 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         453 

at  others  she  takes  quite  a  different  tone.  She  has  not 
allowed  even  Joe  King  so  much  as  to  put  his  lips  to  hers 
this  ten  years.  She  would  rather  have  a  mutton  chop 
any  day.  "But  ah!  you  should  have  seen  me  when  I 
was  sweet  seventeen.  I  was  the  very  moral  of  my  poor 
dear  mother,  and  she  was  a  pretty  woman,  though  I  say 
it  that  shouldn't.  She  had  such  a  splendid  mouth  of 
teeth.  It  was  a  sin  to  bury  her  in  her  teeth." 

I  only  knew  of  one  thing  at  which  she  professes  to 
be  shocked.  It  is  that  her  son  Tom  and  his  wife  Topsy 
are  teaching  the  baby  to  swear.  "Oh !  it's  too  dreadful 
awful,"  she  exclaimed ;  "I  don't  know  the  meaning  of  the 
words,  but  I  tell  him  he's  a  drunken  sot."  I  believe  the 
old  woman  in  reality  rather  likes  it. 

"But  surely,  Mrs.  Jupp,"  said  I,  "Tom's  wife  used 
not  to  be  Topsy.  You  used  to  speak  of  her  as  Pheeb." 

"Ah!  yes,"  she  answered,  "but  Pheeb  behaved  bad, 
and  it's  Topsy  now." 

Ernest's  daughter  Alice  married  the  boy  who  had  been 
her  playmate  more  than  a  year  ago.  Ernest  gave  them 
all  they  said  they  wanted  and  a  good  deal  more.  They 
have  already  presented  him  with  a  grandson,  and  I  doubt 
not  will  do  so  with  many  more.  Georgie  though  only 
twenty-one  is  owner  of  a  fine  steamer  which  his  father 
has  bought  for  him.  He  began  when  about  thirteen 
going  with  old  Rollings  and  Jack  in  the  barge  from 
Rochester  to  the  upper  Thames  with  bricks;  then  his 
father  bought  him  and  Jack  barges  of  their  own,  and 
then  he  bought  them  both  ships,  and  then  steamers.  I 
do  not  exactly  know  how  people  make  money  by  having 
a  steamer,  but  he  does  whatever  is  usual,  and  from  all 
I  can  gather  makes  it  pay  extremely  well.  He  is  a  good 
deal  like  his  father  in  the  face,  but  without  a  spark — 
so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  observe — of  any  literary 
ability ;  he  has  a  fair  sense  of  humour  and  abundance  of 
common  sense,  but  his  instinct  is  clearly  a  practical  one. 
I  am  not  sure  that  he  does  not  put  me  in  mind  almost 


454         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

more  of  what  Theobald  would  have  been  if  he  had  been 
a  sailor,  than  of  Ernest.  Ernest  used  to  go  down  to 
Battersby  and  stay  with  his  father  for  a  few  days  twice 
a  year  until  Theobald's  death,  and  the  pair  continued  on 
excellent  terms,  in  spite  of  what  the  neighbouring  clergy 
call  "the  atrocious  books  which  Mr.  Ernest  Pontifex" 
has  written.  Perhaps  the  harmony,  or  rather  absence 
of  discord,  which  subsisted  between  the  pair  was  due  to 
the  fact  that  Theobald  had  never  looked  into  the  inside 
of  one  of  his  son's  works,  and  Ernest,  of  course,  never 
alluded  to  them  in  his  father's  presence.  The  pair,  as 
I  have  said,  got  on  excellently,  but  it  was  doubtless  as 
well  that  Ernest's  visits  were  short  and  not  too  frequent. 
Once  Theobald  wanted  Ernest  to  bring  his  children,  but 
Ernest  knew  they  would  not  like  it,  so  this  was  not  done. 

Sometimes  Theobald  came  up  to  town  on  small  busi- 
ness matters  and  paid  a  visit  to  Ernest's  chambers ;  he 
generally  brought  with  him  a  couple  of  lettuces,  or  a 
cabbage,  or  half-a-dozen-  turnips  done  up  in  a  piece  of 
brown  paper,  and  told  Ernest  that  he  knew  fresh  vege- 
tables were  rather  hard  to  get  in  London,  and  he  had 
brought  him  some.  Ernest  had  often  explained  to  him 
that  the  vegetables  were  of  no  use  to  him,  and  that  he 
had  rather  he  would  not  bring  them ;  but  Theobald  per- 
sisted, I  believe  through  sheer  love  of  doing  something 
which  his  son  did  not  like,  but  which  was  too  small  to 
take  notice  of. 

He  lived  until  about  twelve  months  ago,  when  he  was 
found  dead  in  his  bed  on  the  morning  after  having  writ- 
ten the  following  letter  to  his  son : — 

"DEAR  ERNEST, — I've  nothing  particular  to  write  about, 
but  your  letter  has  been  lying  for  some  days  in  the  limbo 
of  unanswered  letters,  to  wit  my  pocket,  and  it's  time  it 
was  answered. 

"I  keep  wonderfully  well  and  am  able  to  walk  my  five 
or  six  miles  with  comfort,  but  at  my  age  there's  no  know- 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         455 

ing  how  long  it  will  last,  and  time  flies  quickly.  I  have 
been  busy  potting  plants  all  the  morning,  but  this  after- 
noon is  wet. 

"What  is  this  horrid  Government  going  to  do  with 
Ireland  ?  I  don't  exactly  wish  they'd  blow  up  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, but  if  a  mad  bull  would  chivy  him  there,  and  he 
would  never  come  back  any  more,  I  should  not  be  sorry. 
Lord  Hartington  is  not  exactly  the  man  I  should  like  to 
set  in  his  place,  but  he  would  be  immeasurably  better 
than  Gladstone. 

"I  miss  your  sister  Charlotte  more  than  I  can  express. 
She  kept  my  household  accounts,  and  I  could  pour  out 
to  her  all  my  little  worries,  and  now  that  Joey  is  married 
too,  I  don't  know  what  I  should  do  if  one  or  other  of 
them  did  not  come  sometimes  and  take  care  of  me.  My 
only  comfort  is  that  Charlotte  will  make  her  husband 
happy,  and  that  he  is  as  nearly  worthy  of  her  as  a  hus- 
band can  well  be. — Believe  me,  Your  affectionate  father, 

"THEOBALD  PONTIFEX." 

I  may  say  in  passing  that  though  Theobald  speaks  of 
Charlotte's  marriage  as  though  it  were  recent,  it  had 
really  taken  place  some  six  years  previously,  she  being 
then  about  thirty-eight  years  old,  and  her  husband  about 
seven  years  younger. 

There  was  no  doubt  that  Theobald  passed  peacefully 
away  during  his  sleep.  Can  a  man  who  died  thus  be 
said  to  have  died  at  all?  He  has  presented  the  phe- 
nomena of  death  to  other  people,  but  in  respect  of  him- 
self he  has  not  only  not  died,  but  has  not  even  thought 
that  he  was  going  to  die.  This  is  not  more  than  half 
dying,  but  then  neither  was  his  life  more  than  half  living. 
He  presented  so  many  of  the  phenomena  of  living  that  I 
suppose  on  the  whole  it  would  be  less  trouble  to  think 
of  him  as  having  been  alive  than  as  never  having  been 
born  at  all,  but  this  is  only  possible  because  association 
does  not  stick  to  the  strict  letter  of  its  bond. 


456         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

This,  however,  was  not  the  general  verdict  concerning 
him,  and  the  general  verdict  is  often  the  truest. 

Ernest  was  overwhelmed  with  expressions  of  con- 
dolence and  respect  for  his  father's  memory.  "He 
never,"  said  Dr.  Martin,  the  old  doctor  who  brought 
Ernest  into  the  world,  "spoke  an  ill  word  against  anyone. 
He  was  not  only  liked,  he  was  beloved  by  all  who  had 
anything  to  do  with  him." 

"A  more  perfectly  just  and  righteously  dealing  man," 
said  the  family  solicitor,  "I  have  never  had  anything  to 
do  with — nor  one  more  punctual  in  the  discharge  of  every 
business  obligation." 

"We  shall  miss  him  sadly,"  the  bishop  wrote  to  Joey 
in  the  very  warmest  terms.  The  poor  were  in  consterna- 
tion. "The  well's  never  missed,"  said  one  old  woman, 
"till  it's  dry,"  and  she  only  said  what  everyone  else  felt. 
Ernest  knew  that  the  general  regret  was  unaffected  as 
for  a  loss  which  could  not  be  easily  repaired.  He  felt 
that  there  were  only  three  people  in  the  world  who  joined 
insincerely  in  the  tribute  of  applause,  and  these  were  the 
very  three  who  could  least  show  their  want  of  sympathy. 
I  mean  Joey,  Charlotte,  and  himself.  He  felt  bitter 
against  himself  for  being  of  a  mind  with  either  Joey  or 
Charlotte  upon  any  subject,  and  thankful  that  he  must 
conceal  his  being  so  as  far  as  possible,  not  because  of 
anything  his  father  had  done  to  him — these  grievances 
were  too  old  to  be  remembered  now — but  because  he 
would  never  allow  him  to  feel  towards  him  as  he  was 
always  trying  to  feel.  As  long  as  communication  was 
confined  to  the  merest  commonplace  all  went  well,  but 
if  these  were  departed  from  ever  such  a  little  he  invari- 
ably felt  that  his  father's  instincts  showed  themselves  in 
immediate  opposition  to  his  own.  When  he  was  attacked 
his  father  laid  whatever  stress  was  possible  on  every- 
thing which  his  opponents  said.  If  he  met  with  any 
check  his  father  was  clearly  pleased.  What  the  old 
doctor  had  said  about  Theobald's  speaking  ill  of  no  man 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         457 

was  perfectly  true  as  regards  others  than  himself,  but 
he  knew  very  well  that  no  one  had  injured  his  reputation 
in  a  quiet  way,  so  far  as  he  dared  to  do,  more  than  his 
own  father.  This  is  a  very  common  case  and  a  very 
natural  one.  It  often  happens  that  if  the  son  is  right, 
the  father  is  wrong,  and  the  father  is  not  going  to  have 
this  if  he  can  help  it. 

It  was  \ery  hard,  however,  to  say  what  was  the  true 
root  of  the  mischief  in  the  present  case.  It  was  not 
Ernest's  having  been  imprisoned.  Theobald  forgot  all 
about  that  much  sooner  than  nine  fathers  out  of  ten 
would  have  done.  Partly,  no  doubt,  it  was  due  to  incom- 
patibility of  temperament,  but  I  believe  the  main  ground 
of  complaint  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  had  been  so  independ- 
ent and  so  rich  while  still  very  young,  and  that  thus  the 
old  gentleman  had  been  robbed  of  his  power  to  tease  and 
scratch  in  the  way  which  he  felt  he  was  entitled  to  do. 
The  love  of  teasing  in  a  small  way  when  he  felt  safe  in 
doing  so  had  remained  part  of  his  nature  from  the  days 
when  he  told  his  nurse  that  he  would  keep  her  on  purpose 
to  torment  her.  I  suppose  it  is  so  with  all  of  us.  At  any 
rate  I  am  sure  that  most  fathers,  especially  if  they  are 
clergymen,  are  like  Theobald. 

He  did  not  in  reality,  I  am  convinced,  like  Joey  or 
Charlotte  one  whit  better  than  he  liked  Ernest.  He  did 
not  like  anyone  or  anything,  or  if  he  liked  anyone  at  all 
it  was  his  butler,  who  looked  after  him  when  he  was  not 
well,  and  took  great  care  of  him  and  believed  him  to  be 
the  best  and  ablest  man  in  the  whole  world.  Whether 
this  faithful  and  attached  servant  continued  to  think  this 
after  Theobald's  will  was  opened  and  it  was  found  what 
kind  of  legacy  had  been  left  him  I  know  not.  Of  his 
children,  the  baby  who  had  died  at  a  day  old  was  the 
only  one  whom  he  held  to  have  treated  him  quite  filially. 
As  for  Christina  he  hardly  ever  pretended  to  miss  her 
and  never  mentioned  her  name;  but  this  was  taken  as 
a  proof  that  he  felt  her  loss  too  keenly  to  be  able  ever 


458         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

to  speak  of  her.  It  may  have  been  so,  but  I  do  not 
think  it. 

Theobald's  effects  were  sold  by  auction,  and  among 
them  the  Harmony  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
which  he  had  compiled  during  many  years  with  such 
exquisite  neatness  and  a  huge  collection  of  MS.  sermons 
— being  all  in  fact  that  he  had  ever  written.  These  and 
the  Harmony  fetched  ninepence  a  barrow  load.  I  was 
surprised  to  hear  that  Joey  had  not  given  the  three  or 
four  shillings  which  would  have  bought  the  whole  lot, 
but  Ernest  tells  me  that  Joey  was  far  fiercer  in  his  dis- 
like of  his  father  than  ever  he  had  been  himself,  and 
wished  to  get  rid  of  everything  that  reminded  him  of  him. 

It  has  already  appeared  that  both  Joey  and  Charlotte 
are  married.  Joey  has  a  family,  but  he  and  Ernest  very 
rarely  have  any  intercourse.  Of  course,  Ernest  took 
nothing  under  his  father's  will ;  this  had  long  been  under- 
stood, so  that  the  other  two  are  both  well  provided  for. 

Charlotte  is  as  clever  as  ever,  and  sometimes  asks 
Ernest  to  come  and  stay  with  her  and  her  husband  near 
Dover,  I  suppose  because  she  knows  that  the  invitation 
will  not  be  agreeable  to  him.  There  is  a  de  hant  en  bas 
tone  in  all  her  letters ;  it  is  rather  hard  to  lay  one's  finger 
upon  it,  but  Ernest  never  gets  a  letter  from  her  without 
feeling  that  he  is  being  written  to  by  one  who  has  had 
direct  communication  with  an  angel.  "What  an  awful 
creature,"  he  once  said  to  me,  "that  angel  must  have  been 
if  it  had  anything  to  do  with  making  Charlotte  what  she 
is." 

"Could  you  like,"  she  wrote  to  him  not  long  ago,  "the 
thoughts  of  a  little  sea  change  here?  The  top  of  the 
cliffs  will  soon  be  bright  with  heather:  the  gorse  must 
be  out  already,  and  the  heather  I  should  think  begun, 
to  judge  by  the  state  of  the  hill  at  Ewell,  and  heather  or 
no  heather  the  cliffs  are  always  beautiful,  and  if  you 
come  your  room  shall  be  cosy  so  that  you  may  have  a 
resting  corner  to  yourself.  Nineteen  and  sixpence  is 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         459 

the  price  of  a  return  ticket  which  covers  a  month.  Would 
you  decide  just  as  you  would  yourself  like,  only  if  you 
come  we  would  hope  to  try  and  make  it  bright  for  you ; 
but  you  must  not  feel  it  a  burden  on  your  mind  if  you 
feel  disinclined  to  come  in  this  direction." 

"When  I  have  a  bad  nightmare,"  said  Ernest  to  me, 
laughing  as  he  showed  me  this  letter,  "I  dream  that  I 
have  got  to  stay  with  Charlotte." 

Her  letters  are  supposed  to  be  unusually  well  written, 
and  I  believe  it  is  said  among  the  family  that  Charlotte 
has  far  more  real  literary  power  than  Ernest  has.  Some- 
times we  think  that  she  is  writing  at  him  as  much  as  to 
say,  "There  now — don't  you  think  you  are  the  only  one 
of  us  who  can  write ;  read  this !  And  if  you  want  a 
telling  bit  of  descriptive  writing  for  your  next  book,  you 
can  make  what  use  of  it  you  like."  I  daresay  she  writes 
very  well,  but  she  has  fallen  under  the  dominion  of  the 
words  "hope,"  "think,"  "feel,"  "try,"  "bright,"  and  "lit- 
tle," and  can  hardly  write  a  page  without  introduc- 
ing all  these  words  and  some  of  them  more  than 
once.  All  this  has  the  effect  of  making  her  style 
monotonous. 

Ernest  is  as  fond  of  music  as  ever,  perhaps  more  so, 
and  of  late  years  has  added  musical  composition  to  the 
other  irons  in  his  fire.  He  finds  it  still  a  little  difficult, 
and  is  in  constant  trouble  through  getting  into  the  key 
of  C  sharp  after  beginning  in  the  key  of  C  and  being 
unable  to  get  back  again. 

"Getting  into  the  key  of  C  sharp,"  he  said,  "is  like  an 
unprotected  female  travelling  on  the  Metropolitan  Rail- 
way, and  finding  herself  at  Shepherd's  Bush,  without 
quite  knowing  where  she  wants  to  go  to.  How  is  she 
ever  to  get  safe  back  to  Clapham  Junction?  And  Clap- 
ham  Junction  won't  quite  do  either,  for  Clapham  Junc- 
tion is  like  the  diminished  seventh — susceptible  of  such 
enharmonic  change,  that  you  can  resolve  it  into  all  the 
possible  termini  of  music." 


460         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

Talking  of  music  reminds  me  of  a  little  passage  that 
took  place  between  Ernest  and  Miss  Skinner,  Dr.  Skin- 
ner's eldest  daughter,  not  so  very  long  ago.  Dr.  Skinner 
had  long  left  Roughborough,  and  had  become  Dean  of  a 
Cathedral  in  one  of  our  Midland  counties — a  position 
which  exactly  suited  him.  Finding  himself  once  in  the 
neighbourhood  Ernest  called,  for  old  acquaintance  sake, 
and  was  hospitably  entertained  at  lunch. 

Thirty  years  had  whitened  the  Doctor's  bushy  eyebrows 
— his  hair  they  could  not  whiten.  I  believe  that  but  for 
that  wig  he  would  have  been  made  a  bishop. 

His  voice  and  manner  were  unchanged,  and  when 
Ernest,  remarking  upon  a  plan  of  Rome  which  hung  in 
the  hall,  spoke  inadvertently  of  the  Quirmal,  he  replied 
with  all  his  wonted  pomp :  "Yes,  the  Quirmal — or  as  I 
myself  prefer  to  call  it,  the  Quirmal."  After  this 
triumph  he  inhaled  a  long  breath  through  the  corners  of 
his  mouth,  and  flung  it  back  again  into  the  face  of 
Heaven,  as  in  his  finest  form  during  his  head-mastership. 
At  lunch  he  did  indeed  once  say,  "next  to  impossible  to 
think  of  anything  else,"  but  he  immediately  corrected 
himself  and  substituted  the  words,  "next  to  impossible 
to  entertain  irrelevant  ideas,"  after  which  he  seemed  to 
feel  a  good  deal  more  comfortable.  Ernest  saw  the 
familiar  volumes  of  Dr.  Skinner's  works  upon  the  book- 
shelves in  the  Deanery  dining-room,  but  he  saw  no  copy 
of  "Rome  or  the  Bible— Which  ?" 

"And  are  you  still  as  fond  of  music  as  ever,  Mr. 
Pontif ex  ?"  said  Miss  Skinner  to  Ernest  during  the  course 
of  lunch. 

"Of  some  kinds  of  music,  yes,  Miss  Skinner,  but  you 
know  I  never  did  like  modern  music." 

"Isn't  that  rather  dreadful? — Don't  you  think  you 
rather" — she  was  going  to  have  added,  "ought  to?"  but 
she  left  it  unsaid,  feeling  doubtless  that  she  had  suffi- 
ciently conveyed  her  meaning. 

"I  would  like  modern  music,  if  I  could;  I  have  been 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         461 

trying  all  my  life  to  like  it,  but  I  succeed  less  and  less 
the  older  I  grow." 

"And  pray,  where  do  you  consider  modern  music  to 
begin?" 

"With  Sebastian  Bach." 

"And  don't  you  like  Beethoven?" 

"No ;  I  used  to  think  I  did,  when  I  was  younger,  but  I 
know  now  that  I  never  really  liked  him." 

"Ah!  how  can  you  say  so?  You  cannot  understand 
him — you  never  could  say  this  if  you  understood  him. 
For  me  a  simple  chord  of  Beethoven  is  enough.  This  is 
happiness." 

Ernest  was  amused  at  her  strong  family  likeness  to 
her  father — a  likeness  which  had  grown  upon  her  as  she 
had  become  older,  and  which  extended  even  to  voice  and 
manner  of  speaking.  He  remembered  how  he  had  heard 
me  describe  the  game  of  chess  I  had  played  with  the 
doctor  in  days  gone  by,  and  with  his  mind's  ear  seemed 
to  hear  Miss  Skinner  saying,  as  though  it  were  an  epi- 
taph : — 

"Stay: 

I  may  presently  take 
A  simple  chord  of  Beethoven, 

Or  a  small  semiquaver 
From  one  of  Mendelssohn's  Songs  without  Words." 

After  luncheon  when  Ernest  was  left  alone  for  half 
an  hour  or  so  with  the  Dean  he  plied  him  so  well  with 
compliments  that  the  old  gentleman  was  pleased  and 
flattered  beyond  his  wont.  He  rose  and  bowed.  "These 
expressions,"  he  said,  voce  sud,  "are  very  valuable  to 
me."  "They  are  but  a  small  part,  sir,"  rejoined  Ernest, 
"of  what  any  one  of  your  old  pupils  must  feel  towards 
you,"  and  the  pair  danced  as  it  were  a  minuet  at  the 
end  of  the  dining-room  table  in  front  of  the  old  bay 
window  that  looked  upon  the  smooth  shaven  lawn.  On 


462         The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

this  Ernest  departed;  but  a  few  days  afterwards,  the 
Doctor  wrote  him  a  letter  and  told  him  that  his  critics 
were  <TK\rjpol  KCU  avrtVu-Troi,  and  at  the  same  time  weWXTjKToi. 
Ernest  remembered  cr/cX^poi,  and  knew  that  the  other 
words  were  something  of  like  nature,  so  it  was  all  right. 
A  month  or  two  afterwards,  Dr.  Skinner  was  gathered 
to  his  fathers. 

"He  was  an  old  fool,  Ernest,"  said  I,  "and  you  should 
not  relent  towards  him." 

"I  could  not  help  it,"  he  replied;  "he  was  so  old  that 
it  was  almost  like  playing  with  a  child." 

Sometimes,  like  all  whose  minds  are  active,  Ernest 
overworks  himself,  and  then  occasionally  he  has  fierce 
and  reproachful  encounters  with  Dr.  Skinner  or  Theo- 
bald in  his  sleep — but  beyond  this  neither  of  these  two 
worthies  can  now  molest  him  further. 

To  myself  he  has  been  a  son  and  more  than  a  son ; 
at  times  I  am  half  afraid — as  for  example  when  I  talk 
to  him  about  his  books — that  I  may  have  been  to  him 
more  like  a  father  than  I  ought ;  if  I  have,  I  trust  he  has 
forgiven  me.  His  books  are  the  only  bone  of  contention 
between  us.  I  want  him  to  write  like  other  people,  and 
not  to  offend  so  many  of  his  readers ;  he  says  he  can  no 
more  change  his  manner  of  writing  than  the  colour  of 
his  hair  and  that  he  must  write  as  he  does  or  not  at  all. 

With  the  public  generally  he  is  not  a  favourite.  He 
is  admitted  to  have  talent,  but  it  is  considered  generally 
to  be  of  a  queer,  unpractical  kind,  and  no  matter  how 
serious  he  is,  he  is  always  accused  of  being  in  jest.  His 
first  book  was  a  success  for  reasons  which  I  have  already 
explained,  but  none  of  his  others  have  been  more  than 
creditable  failures.  He  is  one  of  those  unfortunate  men, 
each  one  of  whose  books  is  sneered  at  by  literary  critics 
as  soon  as  it  comes  out,  but  becomes  "excellent  reading" 
as  soon  as  it  has  been  followed  by  a  later  work  which 
may  in  its  turn  be  condemned. 

He  never  asked  a  reviewer  to  dinner  in  his  life.     I 


The  Way  of  All  Flesh         463 

have  told  him  over  and  over  again  that  this  is  madness, 
and  find  that  this  is  the  only  thing  I  can  say  to  him  which 
makes  him  angry  with  me. 

"What  can  it  matter  to  me,"  he  says,  "whether  people 
read  my  books  or  not?  It  may  matter  to  them — but  I 
have  too  much  money  to  want  more,  and  if  the  books 
have  any  stuff  in  them  it  will  work  by-and-by.  I  do  not 
know  nor  greatly  care  whether  they  are  good  or  not. 
What  opinion  can  any  sane  man  form  about  his  own 
work?  Some  people  must  write  stupid  books  just  as 
there  must  be  junior  ops  and  third  class  poll  men.  Why 
should  I  complain  of  being  among  the  mediocrities?  If 
a  man  is  not  absolutely  below  mediocrity  let  him  be 
thankful — besides,  the  books  will  have  to  stand  by  them- 
selves some  day,  so  the  sooner  they  begin  the  better." 

I  spoke  to  his  publisher  about  him  not  long  since. 
"Mr.  Pontifex,"  he  said,  "is  a  homo  unius  libri,  but  it 
doesn't  do  to  tell  him  so." 

I  could  see  the  publisher,  who  ought  to  know,  had 
lost  all  faith  in  Ernest's  literary  position,  and  looked 
upon  him  as  a  man  whose  failure  was  all  the  more  hope- 
less for  the  fact  of  his  having  once  made  a  coup.  "He  is 
in  a  very  solitary  position,  Mr.  Overton,"  continued  the 
publisher.  "He  has  formed  no  alliances,  and  has  made 
enemies  not  only  of  the  religious  world  but  of  the  literary 
and  scientific  brotherhood  as  well.  This  will  not  do  now- 
adays. If  a  man  wishes  to  get  on  he  must  belong  to 
a  set,  and  Mr.  Pontifex  belongs  to  no  set — not  even  to  a 
club." 

I  replied,  "Mr.  Pontifex  is  the  exact  likeness  of 
Othello,  but  with  a  difference — he  hates  not  wisely  but 
too  well.  He  would  dislike  the  literary  and  scientific 
swells  if  he  were  to  come  to  know  them  and  they  him; 
there  is  no  natural  solidarity  between  him  and  them,  and 
if  he  were  brought  into  contact  with  them  his  last  state 
would  be  worse  than  his  first.  His  instinct  tells  him  this, 
so  he  keeps  clear  of  them,  and  attacks  them  whenever  he 


464  The  Way  of  All  Flesh 

thinks  they  deserve  it — in  the  hope,  perhaps,  that  a 
younger  generation  will  listen  to  him  more  willingly  than 
the  present." 

"Can  anything,"  said  the  publisher,  "be  conceived  more 
impracticable  and  imprudent?" 

To  all  this  Ernest  replies  with  one  word  only — "Wait." 
Such  is  my  friend's  latest  development.  He  would 
not,  it  is  true,  run  much  chance  at  present  of  trying  to 
found  a  College  of  Spiritual  Pathology,  but  I  must  leave 
the  reader  to  determine  whether  there  is  not  a  strong 
family  likeness  between  the  Ernest  of  the  College  of 
Spiritual  Pathology  and  the  Ernest  who  will  insist  on 
addressing  the  next  generation  rather  than  his  own.  He 
says  he  trusts  that  there  is  not,  and  takes  the  sacrament 
duly  once  a  year  as  a  sop  to  Nemesis  lest  he  should  again 
feel  strongly  upon  any  subject.  It  rather  fatigues  him, 
but  "no  man's  opinions,"  he  sometimes  says,  "can  be 
worth  holding  unless  he  knows  how  to  deny  them  easily 
and  gracefully  upon  occasion  in  the  cause  of  charity." 
In  politics  he  is  a  Conservative  so  far  as  his  vote  and 
interest  are  concerned.  In  all  other  respects  he  is  an 
advanced  Radical.  His  father  and  grandfather  could 
probably  no  more  understand  his  state  of  mind  than  they 
could  understand  Chinese,  but  those  who  know  him  in- 
timately do  not  know  that  they  wish  him  greatly  different 
from  what  he  actually  is. 


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